east to be near you--to do anything so that it be not to stay
here.'

'To go away with me?' he said in a startled tone.

'Yes, yes--or under your direction, or by your help in some way! Don't
be horrified at me--you must bear with me whilst I implore it. Nothing
short of cruelty would have driven me to this. I could have borne my
doom in silence had I been left unmolested; but he tortures me, and I
shall soon be in the grave if I cannot escape.'

To his shocked inquiry how her husband tortured her, the Duchess said
that it was by jealousy. 'He tries to wring admissions from me
concerning you,' she said, 'and will not believe that I have not
communicated with you since my engagement to him was settled by my
father, and I was forced to agree to it.'

The poor curate said that this was the heaviest news of all. 'He has not
personally ill-used you?' he asked.

'Yes,' she whispered.

'What has he done?'

She looked fearfully around, and said, sobbing: 'In trying to make me
confess to what I have never done, he adopts plans I dare not describe
for terrifying me into a weak state, so that I may own to anything! I
resolved to write to you, as I had no other friend.' She added, with
dreary irony, 'I thought I would give him some ground for his suspicion,
so as not to disgrace his judgment.'

'Do you really mean, Emmeline,' he tremblingly inquired, 'that you--that
you want to fly with me?'

'Can you think that I would act otherwise than in earnest at such a time
as this?'

He was silent for a minute or more. 'You must not go with me,' he said.

'Why?'

'It would be sin.'

'It _cannot_ be sin, for I have never wanted to commit sin in my life;
and it isn't likely I would begin now, when I pray every day to die and
be sent to Heaven out of my misery!'

'But it is wrong, Emmeline, all the same.'

'Is it wrong to run away from the fire that scorches you?'

'It would look wrong, at any rate, in this case.'

'Alwyn, Alwyn, take me, I beseech you!' she burst out. 'It is not right
in general, I know, but it is such an exceptional instance, this. Why
has such a severe strain been put upon me? I was doing no harm, injuring
no one, helping many people, and expecting happiness; yet trouble came.
Can it be that God holds me in derision? I had no supporter--I gave way;
and now my life is a burden and a shame to me . . . Oh, if you only knew
how much to me this request to you is--how my life is wrapped up in it,