I made a sudden cry, though I tried not to.
"Oh, I know," he said. "It's not what we could wish. But we'll be open about it. We'll face it out. Why shouldn't we? I shall anyway. And if your father and the Bishop say anything to me I'll tell them what I think of the abominable marriage they forced you into. As for you, dear, I know you'll have to bear something. All the conventional canting hypocrisies! Every man who has bought his wife, and every woman who has sold herself into concubinage—there are thousands and thousands of them all the world over, and they'll try . . . perhaps they'll try . . . but let them try. If they want to trample the life out of you they'll have to walk over me first—yes, by God they will!"
"But Martin . . ."
"Well?"
"Do you mean that I . . . I am . . . to . . . to live with you without marriage?"
"It's the only thing possible, isn't it?" he said. And then he tried to show me that love was everything, and if people loved each other nothing else mattered—religious ceremonies were nothing, the morality of society was nothing, the world and its back-biting was nothing.
The great moment had come for me at last, and though I felt torn between love and pity I had to face it.
"Martin, I . . . I can't do it," I said.
He looked steadfastly into my face for a moment, but I dare not look back, for I knew he was suffering.
"You think it would be wrong?"