I am chained to a corpse for life. I had not enough moral
courage three-years ago to make you my wife. But I have moral
courage enough now to come here and ask you to go with me to
Australia, and begin a new life together. My mother died a year ago.
I donned the surplice at her bidding. I will abandon it at the
bidding of Love. I sinned against heaven in marrying a woman I did
not love. I am willing to sin against the laws of man by living with
the woman I do love; will you go with me, Joy?" There was silence
save for the beating of the rain against the stained window, and the
wailing of the wind.
Joy was in a peculiarly overwrought condition of mind and body. Her
hours of extravagant weeping the previous night, followed by a day of
fasting, left her nervous system in a state to be easily excited by
the music she had been playing. She was virtually intoxicated with
sorrow and harmony. She was incapable of reasoning, and conscious
only of two things--that she must leave Beryngford, and that the man
whom she had loved with her whole heart for five years, was asking
her to go with him; to be no more homeless, unloved, and alone, but
his companion while life should last.
"Answer me, Joy," he was pleading. "Answer me."
She moved toward the stairway that led down to the street door; and
as she flitted by him, she said, looking him full in the eyes with a
slow, grave smile, "Yes, Arthur, I will go with you.
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