And she crouched lower down on the rough bench on which she was sitting, and buried her face in her hands.
[CHAPTER] II.
THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
“Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak?
To have spoken once? It could not but be well.
* * * * * *
O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush
Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There—closing like an individual life—
In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
Like bitter accusation ev’n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter’d it,
And bade adieu for ever.”
LOVE AND DUTY.
THERE was a terrible silence in the little arbour.
Outside, in the garden, the sun and the flowers, the birds and the insects, went on with their song of rejoicing as before, but it reached no longer the ears of the two human beings who but now had re-echoed it in their hearts.
Was it hours or only minutes that it lasted —this silence as of death.
At last Ralph spoke, quietly—so very quietly, that though Marion could not see his face, his voice made her start with a strange, unknown terror.
“And who did this thing?” he asked. “Who forced you into this hideous mockery of a marriage?”