Some will, perhaps, think it an unnatural thing that Mary should have regarded her pledge to the Doctor as of so absolute and binding force; but they must remember the rigidity of her education. Self-denial and self-sacrifice had been the daily bread of her life. Every prayer, hymn, and sermon, from her childhood, had warned her to distrust her inclinations and regard her feelings as traitors. In particular had she been brought up to regard the sacredness of a promise with a superstitious tenacity; and in this case the promise involved so deeply the happiness of a friend whom she had loved and revered all her life, that she never thought of any way of escape from it. She had been taught that there was no feeling so strong but that it might be immediately repressed at the call of duty; and if the thought arose to her of this great love to another, she immediately answered it by saying, "How would it have been, if I had been married? As I could have overcome then, so I can now."
Mrs. Scudder came into her room with a candle in her hand, and Mary, accustomed to read the expression of her mother's countenance, saw at a glance a visible discomposure there. She held the light so that it shone upon Mary's face.
Mrs. Scudder set down the candle, and shut the door, and, after a moment's hesitation, said,--
"My daughter, I have some news to tell you, which I want you to prepare your mind for. Keep yourself quite quiet"
"Oh, mother!" said Mary, stretching out her hands towards her, "I know it. James has come home."
"How did you hear?" said her mother, with astonishment.
"I went to walk home with Cerinthy Twitchel, and, as I was coming back, he came up behind me, just at Savin Rock."
Mrs. Scudder sat down on the bed and took her daughter's hand.
"I trust, my dear child," she said. She stopped.
"I think I know what you are going to say, mother. It is a great joy, and a great relief; but of course I shall be true to my engagement with the Doctor."
"That is my own daughter! I might have known that you would do so. You would not, certainly, so cruelly disappoint a noble man who has set his whole faith upon you."
"No, mother, I shall not disappoint him. I told James that I should be true to my word."