That is not right."
"No, that is not right," said I, dully.
"Then tell me, what is marriage--that one thing a girl dreams of all her
life. Is it of the church?"
"It is not of the church," I said.
"Then it is the law."
"It is not the law," I said.
"Then what is it?" she asked. "John Cowles, tell me, what makes a
wedding between two who really and truly love. Can marriage be of but
two?"
"Yes," said I.
"But there must be witnesses--there must be ceremony--else there is no
marriage," she went on. Her woman's brain clung to the safe, sane groove
which alone can guide progress and civilization and society--that great,
cruel, kind, imperative compromise of marriage, without which all the
advancement of the world would be as naught. I loved her for it. But for
me, I say I had gone savage. I was at the beginning of all this, whereas
it remained with her as she had left it.
"Witnesses?" I said. "Look at those!" I pointed to the mountains.
"Marriages, many of them, have been made with no better witnesses than
those."
My heart stopped when I saw how far she had jumped to her next speech.
"Then we two are all the people left in the world, John Cowles? When I
am old, will you cast me off? When another woman comes into this valley,
when I am bent and old, and cannot see, will you cast me off, and, being
stronger than I am, will you go and leave me?"
I could not speak at first.
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