"I thought . . . as there was no other way of escape from this terrible
marriage . . . but if you think . . ."
He stopped, and then coming closer he said:
"I suppose you know what this means for you, Mary--that after all the
degradation you have gone through you are shutting the door to a
worthier, purer life, and that . . ."
I could bear no more. My heart was yearning for him, yet I was compelled
to speak.
"But would it be a purer life, Martin, if it began in sin? No, no, it
wouldn't, it couldn't. Oh, you can't think how hard it is to deny myself
the happiness you offer me. It's harder than all the miseries my husband
has inflicted upon me. But it wouldn't be happiness, because our sin
would stand between us. That would always be there, Martin--every day,
every night, as long as ever we lived. . . . We should never know one
really happy hour. I'm sure we should not. I should be unhappy myself
and I should make you unhappy. Oh, I daren't! I daren't! Don't ask me, I
beg--I beseech you."
I burst into tears after this, and there was a long silence between us.
Then Martin touched my arm and said with a gentleness that nearly broke
my heart:
"Don't cry, Mary. I give in. I find I have no will but yours, dear. If
_you_ can bear the present condition of things, I ought to be able to.
Let us go back to the house."
He raised me to my feet and we turned our faces homeward. All the
brightness of the day had gone for both of us by this time. The tide was
now far out. Its moaning was only a distant murmur. The shore was a
stretch of jagged black rocks covered with sea-weed.