"Not free? Who or what constrained you to such an act?"
"My honor. In a moment of weakness, and under the fascination of a strong masculine will, I plighted faith with Mr. Dexter. He knew at the time that I did not love him as a woman should love the man she consents to marry. He knew that he was extorting an unwilling consent. And just so far he took an unmanly advantage of a weak young girl. But the contract once made, truth and honor required its fulfillment. At least, so said my aunt, to whom alone I confided my secret; and so said my stern convictions of duty."
"So far from that," replied Mrs. De Lisle, "truth and honor required its non-fulfillment; for neither in truth nor in honor, could you take the marriage vows."
The directness with which Mrs. De Lisle stated this position of the case, startled her auditor.
"Is it not so?" was calmly asked. "You are too much in the habit of looking below the surface of things, to regard the formula of marriage as an unmeaning array of words. In their full signification, you could not utter the sentences you were required to speak—how then, as regarding truth and honor, could you pronounce them in that act of your life which, of all others, should have been most without guile? I would have torn all such extorted promises into a thousand tatters, and scattered them to the winds! The dishonor of breaking them were nothing to the wrong of fulfillment. Witness your unhappy lives!"
"Would to heaven you had been the friend of my girlhood!"
It was all the reply Mrs. Dexter made, as she bowed her head, like one pressed down by a heavy burden.
"You will now comprehend, more clearly than before," said Mrs. De Lisle, "your present duty to your husband. He thought that he was gaining a wife, and you, in wedding him promised to him to be a wife—promised with a deep conviction in your soul that the words were empty utterances. The case is a sad one, viewed in any aspect; but pardon me for saying, that you were most to blame. He was an ardent lover, whom you had fascinated; a man of superficial character, and not competent, at the time, to weigh the consequences of an act he was so eager to precipitate. To possess, he imagined was to enjoy. But you were better versed in the heart's lore, and knew he would wake up, ere many moons had passed, to the sad discovery that what he had wooed as substance was only a cheating shadow. And he is waking up. Every day he is becoming more and more clearly convinced that you do not love him, and can never be to him the wife he had fondly hoped to gain. Have you not laid upon yourself a binding obligation? Is it a light thing so to mar the whole life of man? Your duty is plain, Mrs. Dexter. Yield all to him you can, and put on towards him always the sunniest aspects and gentlest semblances of your character. If he is capricious, humor him; if suspicious, act with all promptness in removing suspicion to the extent of your power. Make soft the links of the chain that binds you together, with downy coverings. Truth, honor, duty, religion, all require this."
"Dear friend!" said Mrs. Dexter, grasping the hand of Mrs. De Lisle, "you have lifted me out of a thick atmosphere, through which my eyes saw everything in an uncertain light, up into a clear seeing region. Yes, truth, honor, duty, religion, all speak to my convictions; and with all the truth that in me lieth, will I obey their voice. But love is impossible, and its semblance in me is so faint that my husband cannot see the likeness. There lies the difficulty. He wants a fond, tender, loving wife—a pet and a plaything. These he can never find in me; for, Heaven help me! Mrs. De Lisle, his sphere grows more and more repulsive every day, and I shudder sometimes at the thought of unmitigated disgust!"
"Do your best, my friend," was the answer of of Mrs. De Lisle. "Fill, to the utmost of your ability, all your wifely relations, and seek to develop in your husband those higher qualities of thought and feeling to which your spirit can attach itself. And above all, do not listen to such erroneous counsels as Mrs. Anthony gave just now. If followed they will surely produce a harvest of misery."