though she
could not at all understand it. "I could sometimes be quite pleasant. I
used to go about the house singing and laughing. Am I going mad?"

"Suppose we go mad together?" said Catherine. "I will if you will."

"Suppose we elope together!" said Esther. "Will you run off with me?"

"Any where but to Colorado," replied Catherine, "I have seen all I want
of Colorado."

"We will take our wedding journey together and leave our husbands
behind. Let them catch us if they can!" continued Esther, talking
rapidly and feverishly.

"It would be rather fun to see Mr. Hazard driving Mr. Van Dam's fast
trotters after us," remarked Catherine.

"When shall we go? Can we start now?"

"Don't you think we had better go to bed just now, and elope in the
morning?" grumbled Catherine. "They can see us better by daylight."

"I tell you, Catherine, that I am in awful earnest. I mean to go away
somewhere, and if you won't go with me, I shall go alone."

"Suppose they catch us?" said Catherine.

"I don't care! I am hopelessly wicked! I can't be respectable and
believe the thirty-nine articles. I can't go to church every Sunday or
hold my tongue or pretend to be pious."

"Then why don't you tell him so, and let him run away?" asked Catherine.

"Because then he would think it his duty to run," said Esther, "and I
don't want to be run away from. Would you like to have the world think
you were jilted?"

"How you do torture your poor brain!" said Catherine pityingly. "There!
Go to bed now! It is long past midnight. To-morrow I will run you off,
and you never shall go to church any more."

Esther was really in a way to alarm her friends. She went to bed as
Catherine advised, but her sleep was feverish, as though she had dieted
herself on opium. She acted over and over again the scene that lay
before her, until her brain felt physically weary, as though it had run
all night round and round its narrow chamber. Her head was so tired in
the morning that it was a relief to get up and face real life. She
dressed herself with uncommon care. She meant to keep her crown even
though she threw away her kingdom, and though she should lose a husband,
she intended to hold fast her lover. Women have the right to this
coquetry with fate. Iphigenia herself, when the priests, who muffled her
voice, stretched her on the altar and struck the knife in her throat,
tried to charm them with her sad eyes while her saffron blood was
flowing, and they sa