He shook his head. "I know men," said he.
"Yes," said I, "I would have been no man worth the name had I not loved
your daughter. And I admit to you that I shall never love another woman,
not in all my life."
In answer he flung down on the ground in front of me something that he
carried--the scroll of our covenant, signed by my name and in part by
hers.
"What does this mean?" he asked.
"It means," said I, "what it says; that here or anywhere, in sickness or
in health, in adversity or prosperity, until I lie down to die and she
beside me in her time, we two are in the eye of God married; and in the
eye of man would have been, here or wherever else we might be."
I saw his face pale; but a somber flame came into his eyes. "And you say
this--you, _after all I know regarding you_!"
Again I felt that old chill of terror and self-reproach strike to my
heart. I saw my guilt once more, horrible as though an actual presence.
I remembered what Ellen Meriwether had said to me regarding any other or
earlier covenant. I recalled my troth, plighted earlier, before I had
ever seen her,--my faith, pledged in another world. So, seeing myself
utterly ruined in my own sight and his and hers, I turned to him at
length, with no pride in my bearing.
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