uld suffer
often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be
under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I
should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved
feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would
be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came,
and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity
could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as
his wife--at his side always, and always restrained, and always
checked--forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel
it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame
consumed vital after vital--_this_ would be unendurable.

"St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.

"Well?" he answered icily.

"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but
not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you."

"A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the
whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me
to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be
for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage
tribes--and unwed?"

"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as
if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like
yourself."

"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such:
to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And
for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's
heart and--it would not do."

"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a
woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a
comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity,
if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant:
nothing more--don't fear."

"It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I
want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,
you would not repent marrying me--be certain of that; we _must_ be
married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of
love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
eyes."

"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up an