“Ah, dearest, this is church!  See, I have brought you this ring.  We will stand up before God and our own hearts, and I will marry you here.  We need no other witnesses than ourselves and this ring!”

Though my youthful heart was blinded by love and passion, I was not prepared for this.  Excitement and the strangeness of the proposition overcame me, and I broke forth into sobs.

He endeavored to soothe me, urging his request with a pleading force which I could scarcely withstand.

“I am not prepared, Richard,” said I, drying my tears; “this is so sudden, so unlooked for, I must have time for thought.”

But thought only revealed a gaping abyss, from which I must fly.

He continued to urge his plea; but seeing I would not yield, his countenance changed.  The sweet, seductive smile vanished.  He grew white as the moonbeam, and, clenching his hand and setting his teeth, bent over me, whispering huskily: 

“Agnes, I shall not step from this room to-night.  I have the key.  You have promised to be mine.  You shall keep that promise.  To-night you shall keep that promise!”

If he was pale, I became paler.  A cold chill crept over me.  But I took my resolution, unyielding as death, not to grant his request.

A chasm seemed to yawn before me.  The loneliness and friendlessness of my position were presented to my mind with terrific reality.  A deadly swoon-like feeling ensued.  To yield in this might seal my fate.  I paced the floor rapidly, praying for help.

Help came suddenly.  As I passed the door of my wardrobe, I remembered that the same key unlocked this and the door of my apartment.  I drew it forth, and in the twinkling of an eye I was free.

The cool air from the outside passage, and the prospect of liberty, cooled my excited nerves, and revived me for the work I had to accomplish.

“Richard,” said I, my hand upon the latch, “you or I must leave.”

He made no reply, but violently rising from his chair, grasped something that lay near him, and tearing it to atoms, rushed by me without word or look, and reaching the stairs, hastened out of sight.

Mechanically I sat down, and with sad, straining eyes surveyed the wreck before me.  My bridal wreath was shivered into fragments; its white petals, like fruit blossoms caught in an untimely blast, sprinkled the floor; my laces were in shreds like the riven mast of some shipwrecked vessel.

Of course there was no sleep for me that night.  When worn out with thinking and weeping, I drew a large easy chair up to the door and sat there as guard, listening, with the hope which moment after moment grew fainter, that he would return and whisper in my willing ear a sweet demand for pardon, some word in extenuation for his unseemly conduct; but he came not.

Toward daybreak, I was aroused from the lethargy into which I had fallen from sheer exhaustion by the sound of excited voices and hurried movements in the room below.  As these subsided and the gray morning broke, I was startled by the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the graveled walk.