I shall go mad if you don't. I can care for
no one but you. All my life is in you now. You know I cannot love that
girl, and we cannot continue in this wretched life. There is no sense in
it; it is a voluntary, senseless martyrdom!'
'Hubert, do not tempt me to be disloyal to my friend. It is cruel of you,
for you know I love you. But no, nothing shall tempt me. How can I? We do
not know what might happen. The shock might kill her. She might do away
with herself.'
'You must come with me,' said Hubert, now completely lost in his passion.
'Nothing will happen. Girls do not do away with themselves; girls do not
die of broken hearts. Nothing happens in these days. A few more tears will
be shed, and she will soon become reconciled to what cannot be altered. A
year or so after, we will marry her to a nice young man, and she will
settle down a quiet mother of children.'
'Perhaps you are right.'
An empty fly, returning to the town, passed them. The fly-man raised his
whip.
'Take you to the railway station in ten minutes!'
Hubert spoke quietly; nevertheless there was a strange nervousness in his
eyes when he said--
'Fate comes to help me; she offers us the means of escape. You will not
refuse, Julia?'
Her upraised face was full of doubt and pain, and she was perplexed by the
fly-man's dull eyes, his starved horse, his ramshackle vehicle, the wet
road, the leaden sky.
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