It was now Morlene's time to cry. She wept bitterly, her gentle spirit chiding the cruel fate that had woven such a web about her feet. Parentless, homeless, friendless, now doomed to a loveless marriage, she considered her lot an inexpressibly hard one.
The two girls wept together, Beulah now weeping over the necessity of imposing such a marriage on Morlene. Having as Harry's sister persuaded Morlene into agreeing to the marriage, she now as a woman wept in sympathy with Morlene over a prospective wedlock without love. When the two had regained self-control, they returned to the house. Morlene went to Harry's bedside and knelt there. She took his enfeebled arm and laid it across her shoulder, smiling at him sweetly the while.
"Harry," said she, "I have come to tell you that I am going to be your wife, a true wife—one that will do all that is in her power for your comfort and welfare."
So saying she leaned forward and sealed her doom with a kiss.
Beulah, eager to insure Harry's recovery, and fearing that Morlene, after a period of reflection, might deny the binding force of a vow extorted from her in the dread presence of death, hastened matters. The next day Harry and Morlene were duly pronounced man and wife.
When a woman's hand is chained and her heart is free!
