I'm sure it is the best thing I could do, now; but--Judge Baker is right! What was it he said? "A loveless marriage,"--Oh, well, since I broke Ned Hynes's heart by setting a silly little girl to drive him away, and broke my own by breaking his, I haven't much cared what becomes of me; only to be at peace.
It will be a relief to move out of this accursed flat, where I have spent the gloomiest hours of my life.
(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.)
In three days it will be a year since Helen promised to marry me, and on that anniversary she will be my wife.
It is strange how exactly according to my plan things have come about--and how differently from all that I have dreamed.
She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner than I dared to hope--and--I must be good to her. I must love her.
Did I ever doubt my love until she claimed it five days ago with such confidence in my loyalty? In that moment, as I went to her, as I took her in my arms, as I felt that she needed me and trusted me, with the suddenness of a revelation I knew--
It was hard to meet Ethel--and Milly and Mrs. Baker afterwards.
To-day, in preparing to move to our new home, I came across the rough notes I wrote last December, when the marvel of Helen's beauty was fresh to me. As I read the disjointed and half incredulous words I had set to paper, I found myself living over again those days of Faery and enchantment.
Custom has somewhat dulled the shock of her beauty; I have grown quickly used to her as the most radiantly lovely of created beings; my mind has been drawn to dwell upon moral problems and to sorrow at seeing her gradually become the victim of her beauty--her nature, once as fine as the outward form that clothes it, warped by constant adulation, envy and strife; until--
But it is a miracle! As unbelievable, as unthinkable as it was on the very first day when that glowing dream of loveliness made manifest floated toward me in the little room overlooking Union Square, and I was near swooning with pure delight of vision.
Beautiful; wonderful! She didn't love me then and she doesn't now; but the most marvellous woman in the world needs me--and I will not fail her.
I wish I could take her out of the city for a change of mental atmosphere. She shrinks from her father's suggestion of a summer on the farm. But in time her wholesome nature must reassert itself; she must become, if not again the fresh, light-hearted girl I knew a year ago, a sweet and gracious woman whose sufferings will have added pathos to her charm.