“Well, and we, beloved! we shall pass to something much better!  We are not partridges or squirrels to live in the woods and fields all winter!  We shall go to our own luxurious home!  You will be my loved and honored and happy wife; the mistress of an elegant house, a fine estate, and many negroes.  You will have superb furniture, beautiful dresses, splendid jewels, servants to attend you, carriages, horses, pleasure boats, and everything else that heart could wish, or money buy, or love find to make you happy!  Think!  Oh, think of all the joys that are in store for you!”

“Not for me!  Oh, not for me those splendors and luxuries and joys that you speak of!  They are too good for me; I shall never possess them; I know it, Herman; and I knew it even in that hour of heavenly bliss when you first told me you loved me!  I knew it even when we stood before the minister to be married, and I know it still!  This short summer of love will be all the joy I shall ever have.”

“In the name of Heaven, Nora, what do you mean?  Is it possible that you can imagine I shall ever be false to you?” passionately demanded the young man, who was deeply impressed at last by the sad earnestness of her manner.

“No! no! no!  I never imagine anything unworthy of your gentle and noble nature,” said Nora, with fervent emphasis as she pressed closer to his side.

“Then why, why, do you torture yourself and me with these dark previsions?”

“I do not know.  Forgive me, Herman,” softly sighed Nora, laying her cheek against his own.

He stole his arm around her waist, and as he drew her to his heart, murmured: 

“Why should you not enjoy all the wealth, rank, and love to which you are entitled as my wife?”

“Ah! dear Herman, I cannot tell why.  I only know that I never shall!  Bear with me, dear Herman, while I say this; After I had learned to love you; after I had grieved myself almost to death for your absence; when you returned and asked me to be your wife, I seemed suddenly to have passed from darkness into radiant light!  But in the midst of it all I seemed to hear a voice in my heart, saying:  ’Poor Moth! you are basking in a consuming fire; you will presently fall to the ground a burnt, blackened, tortured, and writhing thing.’  And, Herman, when I thought of the great difference between us; of your old family, high rank, and vast wealth; and of your magnificent house, and your stately lady mother and fine lady sisters, I knew that though you had married me, I never could be owned as your wife—­”

“Nora, if it were possible for me to be angry with you, I should be so!” interrupted Herman vehemently; “‘you never could be owned as my wife!’ I tell you that you can be—­and that you shall be, and very soon!  It was only to avoid a rupture with my mother that I married you privately at all.  Have I not surrounded you with every legal security?  Have I not armed you even against myself?  Do you not know that even if it were possible for me to turn rascal, and become so mean, and miserable, and dishonored as to desert you, you could still demand your rights as a wife, and compel me to yield them!”