ingrained in her
teachings and her practices, ever since she was a child. No, it was
husband or nothing.

And surely he had been all that he had said he would be. He _was_
kindly, he _was_ chivalrous, he had proved that. She wondered how he
looked. And what had she now to offer for perfection in a man? Was
she not reduced to the bargain counter, in the very basement of life?
If so, what must be her bargain here?

And then she recalled the refusal of Sim Gage himself to think of
marriage. He had said he was not good enough for her. How could she
then marry him, even if she so wished? Must she woo him and persuade
him, argue with him? All her own virginal soul, all the sanctity of
her life, rebelled against that thought also.

Object, matrimony! What a cruel jest it all had been. What a terrible
dilemma, this into which it all had resolved itself. Object, matrimony!

So if this man--so she reasoned again, wearily--if this man who had
been kind at least, even if uncouth, was willing to take her with all
her stories told, and all shortcomings known and understood--if he was
willing to take chances and be content--was that indeed the only way
out for her, Mary Warren?

What made it all most bitter, most difficult, most horrible for her was
the strength of her own soul. Was it the _right_ thing to do--was it
the courageous and valiant thing to do? Those were the two questions
which alone allowed her to face that way for an answer; and they were
the very two which drove her hardest. Could she not do much, if in the
line of duty? Sacrifice was no new thing for women. . . . And the
war! . . . This was not a time for little thoughts.

Such are some of the questions a woman must ask and answer, because she
is a woman. They are asked and answered every day of the world;
perhaps not often so cruelly as here in this little cabin.

She began, weakly, to try to resign herself to some frame of mind by
which she could entertain the bare, brutal thought of this alternative.
She had come more than a thousand miles to meet this man by plan, by
arrangement. Oh, no (so she argued), it could not be true that there
was but one man for one woman, one woman for a man, in all the world.
Annie must have been right. Propinquity did it--was that not why men
and women nearly always married in their own village, their own social
circle? Well, then, here was propinquity. Object, matrimony! Would
propinquity solve all this