But I dared not leave that
fearful thing dangling there; I had to wind. The machinery squeaked,
and its noise seemed to fill the house, but no one came nor did the
door below open. Sometimes I have wished that it had. I should not
then have been lured on and you would not have become involved in
my ruin.
"I have heard many say that I looked radiant when I came down to be
married. The radiance was in their thoughts. Or if my face did
shine, and if I moved as if treading on air, it was because I had
triumphed over all difficulties and could pass down to the altar
without fear of that interrupting voice crying out: `I forbid! She
is mine! The wife of William Pfeiffer can not wed another!' No
such words could be dreaded now. The lips which might have spoken
them were dumb. I forgot that fleshless lips gibber loudest, and
that a lifetime, long or short, lay before me, in which to hear
them mumble and squeak their denunciation and threats. Oh, but I
have been wretched! At ball and dinner and dance those lips have
been ever at my ear, but most when we have sat alone together; most
then; Oh, most then!
"He is avenged; but you! Who will avenge you, and where will you
ever find happiness?
"To blot myself from your memory I would go down deeper into the
vale of suffering than ever I have gone yet.
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