Ishmael; Or, In the Depths. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

that married us resides in this county; the witness that attended us lives with you. So that if to-morrow I should die, you could claim, as my widow, your half of my personal property and your life-interest in my estate. And if to-morrow you should become impatient of your condition as a secreted wife, and wish to enter upon all the honors of Bradenell Hall, you have the power to do so!"

      "As if I would! As if it was for that I loved you! oh, Herman!"

      "I know you would not, love! And I know it was not for that you loved me! I have perfect confidence in your disinterestedness. And I hope you have as much in mine."

      "I have, Herman. I have!"

      "Then, to go back to the first question, why did you wound me by saying, that though I had married you, you knew you never could be owned as my wife?"

      "I spoke from a deep conviction! Oh, Herman, I know you will never willingly forsake me; but I feel you will never acknowledge me!"

      "Then you must think me a villain!" said Herman bitterly.

      "No, no, no; I think, if you must have my thoughts, you are the gentlest, truest, and noblest among men."

      "You cannot get away from the point; if you think I could desert you, you must think I am a villain!"

      "Oh, no, no! besides, I did not say you would desert me! I said you would never own me!"

      "It is in effect the same thing."

      "Herman, understand me: when I say, from the deep conviction I feel, that you will never own me, I also say that you will be blameless."

      "Those two things are incompatible, Nora! But why do you persist in asserting that you will never be owned?"

      "Ah, dear me, because it is true!"

      "But why do you think it is true?"

      "Because when I try to imagine our future, I see only my own humble hut, with its spinning-wheel and loom. And I feel I shall never live in Brudenell Hall!"

      "Nora, hear me: this is near the first of July; in six months, that is before the first of January, whether I live or die, as my wife or as my widow, you shall rule at Brudenell Hall!"

      Nora smiled, a strange, sad smile.

      "Listen, dearest," he continued; "my mother leaves Brudenell in December. She thinks the two young ladies, my sisters, should have more society; so she has purchased a fine house in a fashionable quarter of Washington City. The workmen are now busy decorating and furnishing it. She takes possession of it early in December. Then, my Nora, when my mother and sisters are clear of Brudenell Hall, and settled in their town-house, I will bring you home and write and announce our marriage. Thus there can be no noise. People cannot quarrel very long or fiercely through the post. And finally time and reflection will reconcile my mother to the inevitable, and we shall be all once more united and happy."

      "Herman dear," said Nora softly, "indeed my heart is toward your mother; I could love and revere and serve her as dutifully as if I were her daughter, if she would only deign to let me. And, at any rate, whether she will or not, I cannot help loving and honoring her, because she is your mother and loves you. And, oh, Herman, if she could look into my heart and see how truly I love you, her son, how gladly I would suffer to make you happy, and how willing I should be to live in utter poverty and obscurity, if it would be for your good, I do think she would love me a little for your sake!"

      "Heaven grant it, my darling!"

      "But be sure of this, dear Herman. No matter how she may think it good to treat me, I can never be angry with her. I must always love her and seek her favor, for she is your mother."

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      A SECRET REVEALED.

      Full soon upon that dream of sin

       An awful light came bursting in;

       The shrine was cold at which she knelt;

       The idol of that shrine was gone;

       An humbled thing of shame and guilt;

       Outcast and spurned and lone,

       Wrapt in the shadows of that crime,

       With withered heart and burning brain,

       And tears that fell like fiery rain,

       She passed a fearful time.

       —Whittier.

      Thus in pleasant wandering through the wood and sweet repose beneath the trees the happy lovers passed the blooming months of summer and the glowing months of autumn.

      But when the seasons changed again, and with the last days of November came the bleak northwestern winds that stripped the last leaves from the bare trees, and covered the ground with snow and bound up the streams with ice, and drove the birds to the South, the lovers withdrew within doors, and spent many hours beside the humble cottage fireside.

      Here for the first time Herman had ample opportunity of finding out how very poor the sisters really were, and how very hard one of them at least worked.

      And from the abundance of his own resources he would have supplied their wants and relieved them from this excess of toil, but that there was a reserve of honest pride in these poor girls that forbade them to accept his pressing offers.

      "But this is my own family now," said Herman. "Nora is my wife and Hannah is my sister-in-law, and it is equally my duty and pleasure to provide for them."

      "No, Herman! No, dear Herman! we cannot be considered as your family until you publicly acknowledge us as such. Dear Herman, do not think me cold or ungrateful, when I say to you that it would give me pain and mortification to receive anything from you, until I do so as your acknowledged wife," said Nora.

      "You give everything—you give your hand, your heart, yourself! and you will take nothing," said the young man sadly.

      "Yes, I take as much as I give! I take your hand, your heart, and yourself in return for mine. That is fair; but I will take no more until as your wife I take the head of your establishment," said Nora proudly.

      "Hannah, is this right? She is my wife; she promised to obey me, and she defies me—I ask you is this right?"

      "Yes, Mr. Brudenell. When she is your acknowledged wife, in your house, then she will obey and never 'defy' you, as you call it; but now it is quite different; she has not the shield of your name, and she must take care of her own self-respect until you relieve her of the charge," said the elder sister gravely.

      "Hannah, you are a terrible duenna! You would be an acquisition to some crabbed old Spaniard who had a beautiful young wife to look after! Now I want you to tell me how on earth my burning up that old loom and wheel, and putting a little comfortable furniture in this room, and paying you sufficient to support you both, can possibly hurt her self-respect?" demanded Herman.

      "It will do more than that! it will hurt her character, Mr. Brudenell; and that should be as dear to you as to herself."

      "It is! it is the dearest thing in life to me! But how should what I propose to do hurt either her self-respect or her character? You have not told me that yet!"

      "This way, Mr. Brudenell! If we were to accept your offers, our neighbors would talk of us."

      "Neighbors! why, Hannah, what neighbors have you? In all the months that I have been coming here, I have not chanced to meet a single soul!"

      "No, you have not. And if you had, once in a way, met anyone here, they would have taken you to be a mere passer-by resting yourself in our hut; but if you were to make us as comfortable as you wish, why the very first chance visitor to the hut who would see that the loom and the spinning-wheel and old furniture were gone, and were replaced by the