“Take it,” said Jerome, seductively; “it is now mine to give, and yours to accept.”
“Too late,” returned Mell, in sadness; “to-morrow I wed with Rube.”
“To-morrow? Yes, I know. But have you ever reflected what a long way off to-morrow is? and how little we need to dread the coming of to-morrow, if we look well after to-day? And, my dear Mell, how many things occur to-night ere to-morrow ever comes! That’s another thing you have not thought about. In your plans for marrying Rube to-morrow, you have neglected to take into consideration”—the rest he whispered into her ear, so low, so low she could scarcely catch it, but the sudden crash of brazen instruments, the sharp clash of steel, a thunderbolt at her very feet could not have made her start so violently or convulsed her with such terror—“the fact that you are going to marry me to-night!” With a gesture of instinctive repugnance, with a look of supplicating horror, she pushed him away.
“Only devils tempt like that!”
“No devil ever yet tempted a woman to right-doing.”
“It could not be right to treat Rube so.”
“It is the only way to right a wrong already done him.”
“No. I am going to make that wrong up to Rube. I have sworn to do it! I am going to stick by Rube through thick and thin. You go away! What did you come here for? Dark is the fate of the woman who breaks her plighted vows.”
“Darker still the fate of the woman who seals false vows. Such are untrue to the high instincts of the immortal within them.”