“I will not accept my freedom, nor give you yours, my own little wife—I may call you that, because we are pledged to each other, and it’s almost the same: we belong to each other quite as much as if we were already married.”
She shook her head with sad determination. “Your father refuses his consent, and—I—I cannot go into a family that is not willing to receive me.”
“My father had no right to withdraw the consent already given!” he exclaimed hotly.
“That was given to your union with the rich Miss Kemper, not with a poor and nameless waif,” she returned, with a bitter smile.
“Ah! but I pledged myself to neither the wealth nor the name, but to the dear girl who has not changed unless to grow dearer and lovelier still.”
“But I think children are bound to respect the wishes, and certainly the commands, of their parents.”
“I’m not a child!” he cried, with a mixture of anger and pride. “I shall be my own master in a few months; then I shall not consider his consent absolutely necessary, and in the mean time I shall not break my engagement to you.”
“No, Espy, but I release you.”
“I will not be released!” he cried, with increasing anger, “nor will I release you!”
“You will surely not be so ungenerous as to hold me to it against my will?” she said coldly, averting her face and moving farther from him.