“We will say no more about it, sir,” responded Burr. “I hold neither you nor your daughter in any blame.” Then he offered his arm to his mother, and the three went out and down-stairs, and the black woman clapped to the chamber door with a great jar upon her mistress, whose calm of obstinacy had broken into wailing hysterics which betokened no less stanchness. Parson Fair, Burr Gordon, and his mother, at the foot of the stairs among the curious wedding-guests, looked for a second at one another.
The parson's fine state seemed to have deserted him. There were red spots on his pale cheeks. His long hands twitched nervously. “I will—inform them,” he said, huskily, at length, but Burr moved before him. “No, sir; I will do it,” he said.
Then he strode into the great north parlor, where the more important guests were assembled, and where he and Dorothy were to have been married. He stood alone in the clear space between the windows, and knew, as the eyes of the people met his, that they had heard Dorothy's last wild cry, and knew why she would not marry him. He stood for a second facing them all before he spoke, and in spite of the shame of rejection which he felt heaped upon him by them all, and a subtler shame arising from his own heart, in spite of the fact that he could not offer any defense, or do aught but bend his back to the full weight of his humiliation, he had a certain majesty of demeanor. Revolt at humiliation alone precipitates the full measure of it, and the strength which survives defeat, even of one's own convictions, is of a good quality. Silence under wrongful accusation gives the bearing of a hero.
There was a hush over the assembly so complete that it seemed as if the very personalities of the listeners were drawn back from self-consciousness to give free scope for sound. When Burr spoke, everybody heard.
“The marriage between Dorothy Fair and myself is broken off,” was all he said. Then he went out of the room as proudly as if his bride had been by his side, through the entry to the study. Parson Fair and his mother were there. “They know it,” he announced, quite calmly; then he took his fine wedding-hat from the table.
“Where are you going?” his mother demanded, quickly.
“To walk a little way.” Burr turned to Parson Fair. “I beg you not to feel that you must deal severely with your daughter for this,” he said, “for she does not deserve it. She was justified in asking what she did, and in feeling distrust that I did not answer.”
“If a wife's faith cannot survive her husband's silence, then is she no true spouse, and 'twas the part of a man not to answer,” said this Parson Fair, who had all his life followed in most roads the lead of his womankind, and not known it, so much state had he been allowed in his captivity.
“She was justified,” said Burr, “and I beg you, sir, not to visit any displeasure upon her. I have not at any time been worthy of her, although God knows had she not cast me off, and did not this last, with what I remember now of her manner for the last few weeks, make me sure that her heart is no longer mine, I would have lived my life for her, as best I could; and will now, should she say the word.”
With that, Burr Gordon thrust on his wedding-hat, and was out of the study and out of the south door of the house.