n't bring luggage, but what does that
matter? We can stop anywhere and buy what things you need. I have quite
enough money for the present."

"But think of the shock to them all!" she pleaded, trembling through
her frame. "How ill I should seem to repay their long kindness! I can't
do this, my dearest; oh, I can't do this! I will see Mr. Mallard, as I
wished--"

"You shall not see him!" he interrupted violently. "I couldn't bear it.
How do I know--"

"How cruel to speak like that to me!"

"Of your own cruelty you never think. You have made me mad with love of
you, and have no right to refuse to marry me when I show you the way.
If I didn't love you so much, I could bear well enough to let you speak
with any one. Your love is very different from mine, or you couldn't
hesitate a moment."

"Let me think! I can't answer you to-night."

"To-night, or never!--Oh yes, I understand well enough, all your
reasons for hesitating. It would mean relinquishing the wedding-dress
and the carriages and all the rest of the show that delights women. You
are afraid of Mrs. Grundy crying shame when it is known that you have
travelled across Europe with me. You feel it will be difficult to
resume your friendships afterwards. I grant all these things, but I
didn't think they would have meant so much to Cecily."

"You know well that none of these reasons have any weight with me. It
is only in joking that you can speak of them. But the unkindness to
them all, dear! Think of it!"

"Why say 'to them all'? Wouldn't it be simpler to say 'the unkindness
to Mallard'?"

She looked up into his face.

"Why does love make a man speak so bitterly and untruthfully? Nothing
could make me do _you_ such a wrong."

"Because you are so pure of heart and mind that nothing but truth can
be upon your lips. If I were not very near madness, I could never speak
so to you. My own dear love, think only of what I suffer day after day!
And what folly is it that would keep us apart! Suppose they had none
but conscientious motives; in that case, these people take upon
themselves to say what is good for us, what we may be allowed and what
not; they treat us as children. Of course, it is all for _your_
protection. I am not fit to be your husband, my beautiful girl! Tell
me--who knows me better, Mallard or yourself?"

"No one knows you as I do, dearest, nor ever will."

"And do you think me too vile a creature to call you my wife?"

"I need not answer that.