“And England!” exclaimed the girl, with her face kindling gloriously; “and our mother England, must she perish by inches in the tyrant’s clutch, because we are cowards? No, Jasper, no. Be of more constant mind. Tell me, what is it I must do? and, though it wring my heart and rack my brain, if I can save you and your gallant friends, and our dear native land, I will save them, though it kill me.”
“Could you endure to part from me, Theresa—to part from me forever?”
“To part from you, Jasper!” No written phrase can express the agony, the anguish, the despair, which were made manifest in every sound of those few simple words. A breaking heart spoke out in every accent.
“Ay, to part from me, never to see me more—never to hear my voice; only to know that I exist, and that I love you—love you beyond my own soul! Could you do this, Theresa, in the hope of a meeting hereafter, where no tyranny should ever part us any more?”
“I know not—I know not!” she exclaimed, in a shrill, piercing tone, most unlike her usual soft, slow utterance. “Is this the sacrifice you spoke of? Would this be called for at my hands?”
“To part from me so utterly that it should not be known or suspected that we had ever met—ever been wedded?”
“Why, Jasper,” she cried, starting, and gazing at him wildly, “that were impossible; all the world knows that we have met—that we have lived together here—that I am your wife. What do you mean? Are you jesting with me? No, no! God help me! that resolute, stern, dark expression! No, no, no, no! Do not frown on me, Jasper; but keep me not in this suspense—only tell me, Jasper.”
“The whole world—that is to say, the whole world of villagers and peasants here, do know that we have met—that we have lived together; but they do not know—nay, more, they do not believe, that you are my wife, Theresa.”
“Not your wife—not your wife! What, in God’s name, then, do they believe me to be? But I am—I am—yes, before God and man, I am your wife, Jasper St. Aubyn! That shame will I never bear. The parish register will prove it.”
“Before God, dearest, most assuredly you are my wife; but before man, I grieve to say, it is not so; nor will the register, to which you appeal—as I did, when I first heard the scandal—prove any thing, but against you. It seems the rascal sexton cut out the record of our marriage from the register, so soon as the old rector died. He is gone, so that he can witness nothing. Alderly and the sexton will not speak, for to do so would implicate themselves in the guilt of having mutilated the church-register. Alderly’s mother is an idiot. We can prove nothing.”