Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had been held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a miserable moment. During a pause which followed Stephen’s last remark, a fascinating perception, then an alluring conviction, flashed along the brain of both. The perception was that an immediate marriage COULD be contrived; the conviction that such an act, in spite of its daring, its fathomless results, its deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the life they must lead under any other conditions.
The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude of the conception he was cherishing. “How strong we should feel, Elfride! going on our separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!”
It is certain that the young girl’s love for Stephen received a fanning from her father’s opposition which made it blaze with a dozen times the intensity it would have exhibited if left alone. Never were conditions more favourable for developing a girl’s first passing fancy for a handsome boyish face—a fancy rooted in inexperience and nourished by seclusion—into a wild unreflecting passion fervid enough for anything. All the elements of such a development were there, the chief one being hopelessness—a necessary ingredient always to perfect the mixture of feelings united under the name of loving to distraction.
“We would tell papa soon, would we not?” she inquired timidly. “Nobody else need know. He would then be convinced that hearts cannot be played with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love discouraged be ready to die, at a moment’s notice. Stephen, do you not think that if marriages against a parent’s consent are ever justifiable, they are when young people have been favoured up to a point, as we have, and then have had that favour suddenly withdrawn?”
“Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning acted in opposition to your papa’s wishes. Only think, Elfie, how pleasant he was towards me but six hours ago! He liked me, praised me, never objected to my being alone with you.”
“I believe he MUST like you now,” she cried. “And if he found that you irremediably belonged to me, he would own it and help you. “O Stephen, Stephen,” she burst out again, as the remembrance of his packing came afresh to her mind, “I cannot bear your going away like this! It is too dreadful. All I have been expecting miserably killed within me like this!”
Stephen flushed hot with impulse. “I will not be a doubt to you—thought of you shall not be a misery to me!” he said. “We will be wife and husband before we part for long!”
She hid her face on his shoulder. “Anything to make SURE!” she whispered.
“I did not like to propose it immediately,” continued Stephen. “It seemed to me—it seems to me now—like trying to catch you—a girl better in the world than I.”
“Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What’s the use of have beens? We may have been something once; we are nothing now.”