"He hasn't asked for love. Oh, Jack, to think that people should marry each other without a word of love! If he loves me I suppose he thinks that I am bound to give him love in return."
"There, again, Molly, do you love the man?"
"Jack, nobody knows me better than you. What reply can I make?"
"He is too cold and too proud for you, Molly. How can you love him? Perhaps," I added, because I was very sure that she would marry him, "after marriage you will find that his coldness is only a cloak to hide his natural warmth, and that his pride covers his wife as well as himself."
"He is a good man. Everybody says so. Lady Anastasia declares that he is the most honourable and high-principled of men. On that point I am safe. And think, Jack, what a point it is! Why, to marry a drunkard, a sot, a profligate, a gambler—one would sooner die at once and so an end. But I can trust myself with him. I have no fear of such treatment as drives some wives to distraction. Yet he is cold in his manner and proud in his speech. I might find it in my heart to love him if I was not afraid of him." And so she went backwards and forwards. He was so good and so great; his wife must always respect him. He was of rank so exalted—it was a great honour to become his wife. He was so brave—she owed her rescue to his bravery. Yet he had spoken no word of love; nor had she seen any sign of love. I asked her what sign she expected, and she was confused. "Of course," she said, "every girl knows very well when a man is in love with her." "How does she know?" I asked her. "She knows, because she knows." I suppose she felt the man was not in love with her just as her mother felt that his character for virtue and nobility was assumed—"corrupt within," she said. Women are made so. And in the next breath Molly repeated that what his lordship had done was done for love. "How do you know?" I asked again. "Because the captain says so," she replied, with unconscious inconsistency.
"Is the courtship to be conducted entirely by messenger?" I asked.
"No; he will come to-morrow morning and see me. I am to give him an answer then. But the captain has already told him what the answer is to be. Oh, Jack, I am so happy! I am so fortunate that I ought to be happy. Yet I am so down-hearted about it. Going away is a dreadful thing. And when shall I see any of you, I wonder, again? Oh, I am so fortunate! I am so happy." And to show her happiness she dropped a tear, and more tears followed.
What kind of happiness, what kind of good fortune was that which could fill the mind of the captain with gloom and could dissolve Molly's mother in tears, and could herald its approach to the bride by sadness which weighed her down? And as for me, you may believe that my heart was like a lump of lead within me, partly because I was losing the girl I loved, but had never hoped to marry, and partly because from the outset of the whole affair—yes, from the very evening when the news of the grand discovery was read to the "Society of Lynn"—I had looked forward to coming events with foreboding of the most dismal kind.
"Come to see me to-morrow afternoon, Jack," she said. "I must talk about it to some one. With the captain I cannot talk, because he is all for the unequal match, and with my mother I cannot talk because she foretells trouble, and will acknowledge no good thing at all in the man or in the match. Do not forget, Jack. Come to-morrow. I don't know how many days are left to me when I can ask you to come. Oh, Jack, to leave everybody—all my friends—it is hard! But I am the most ungrateful of women, because I am the happiest—the happiest. Oh, Jack, the happiest and most fortunate woman that ever lived."