it, cheers to some extent with a sense of accomplishment. Had
Mr. Swancourt consented to an engagement of no less length than ten
years, Stephen would have been comparatively cheerful in waiting; they
would have felt that they were somewhere on the road to Cupid's garden.
But, with a possibility of a shorter probation, they had not as yet any
prospect of the beginning; the zero of hope had yet to be reached. Mr.
Swancourt would have to revoke his formidable words before the waiting
for marriage could even set in. And this was despair.

'I wish we could marry now,' murmured Stephen, as an impossible fancy.

'So do I,' said she also, as if regarding an idle dream. ''Tis the only
thing that ever does sweethearts good!'

'Secretly would do, would it not, Elfie?'

'Yes, secretly would do; secretly would indeed be best,' she said, and
went on reflectively: 'All we want is to render it absolutely impossible
for any future circumstance to upset our future intention of being happy
together; not to begin being happy now.'

'Exactly,' he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of hers.
'To marry and part secretly, and live on as we are living now; merely to
put it out of anybody's power to force you away from me, dearest.'

'Or you away from me, Stephen.'

'Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of circumstance
strong enough to make any woman in the world marry against her will: no
conceivable pressure, up to torture or starvation, can make a woman once
married to her lover anybody else's wife.'

Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had been
held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a
miserable moment. During a pause which followed Stephen's last remark,
a fascinating perception, then an alluring conviction, flashed along the
brain of both. The perception was that an immediate marriage COULD be
contrived; the conviction that such an act, in spite of its daring, its
fathomless results, its deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the
life they must lead under any other conditions.

The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude of the
conception he was cherishing. 'How strong we should feel, Elfride!
going on our separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate
separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!'

It is certain that the young girl's love for Stephen received a fanning
from her father's opposition which made i