"Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!--all alone with no one but me with him to watch him as day after day passes away, as the ghastly hour comes nearer and still nearer, when he is to be burned in those fearful furnaces!"
"The cremation, my dear, has nothing in truth to do with the Fixed Period."
"To wait till the fatal day shall have arrived, and then to know that at a fixed hour he will be destroyed just because you have said so! Can you imagine what my feelings will be when that moment shall have come?"
I had not in truth thought of it. But now, when the idea was represented to my mind's eye, I acknowledged to myself that it would be impossible that she should be left there for the occasion. How or when she should be taken away, or whither, I could not at the moment think. These would form questions which it would be very hard to answer. After some score of years, say, when the community would be used to the Fixed Period, I could understand that a daughter or a wife might leave the college, and go away into such solitudes as the occasion required, a week perhaps before the hour arranged for departure had come. Custom would make it comparatively easy; as custom has arranged such a period of mourning for a widow, and such another for a widower, a son, or a daughter. But here, with Eva, there would be no custom. She would have nothing to guide her, and might remain there till the last fatal moment. I had hoped that she might have married Jack, or perhaps Grundle, during the interval,--not having foreseen that the year, which was intended to be one of honour and glory, should become a time of mourning and tribulation. "Yes, my dear, it is very sad."
"Sad! Was there ever a position in life so melancholy, so mournful, so unutterably miserable?" I remained there opposite, gazing into vacancy, but I could say nothing. "What do you intend to do, Mr Neverbend?" she asked. "It is altogether in your bosom. My father's life or death is in your hands. What is your decision?" I could only remain steadfast; but it seemed to be impossible to say so. "Well, Mr Neverbend, will you speak?"
"It is not for me to decide. It is for the country."
"The country!" she exclaimed, rising up; "it is your own pride,--your vanity and cruelty combined. You will not yield in this matter to me, your friend's daughter, because your vanity tells you that when you have once said a thing, that thing shall come to pass." Then she put the veil down over her face, and went out of the room.