“An oath!” said Miss Middleton.

“It is no delusion, my love, when I tell you that with this thought upon me I see a ring of monkey faces grinning at me; they haunt me.  But you do swear it!  Once, and I will never trouble you on the subject again.  My weakness! if you like.  You will learn that it is love, a man’s love, stronger than death.”

“An oath?” she said, and moved her lips to recall what she might have said and forgotten.  “To what? what oath?”

“That you will be true to me dead as well as living!  Whisper it.”

“Willoughby, I shall be true to my vows at the altar.”

“To me! me!”

“It will be to you.”

“To my soul.  No heaven can be for me—­I see none, only torture, unless I have your word, Clara.  I trust it.  I will trust it implicitly.  My confidence in you is absolute.”

“Then you need not be troubled.”

“It is for you, my love; that you may be armed and strong when I am not by to protect you.”

“Our views of the world are opposed, Willoughby.”

“Consent; gratify me; swear it.  Say:  ‘Beyond death.’  Whisper it.  I ask for nothing more.  Women think the husband’s grave breaks the bond, cuts the tie, sets them loose.  They wed the flesh—­pah!  What I call on you for is nobility; the transcendent nobility of faithfulness beyond death.  ‘His widow!’ let them say; a saint in widowhood.”

“My vows at the altar must suffice.”

“You will not?  Clara!”

“I am plighted to you.”

“Not a word?—­a simple promise?  But you love me?”

“I have given you the best proof of it that I can.”

“Consider how utterly I place confidence in you.”

“I hope it is well placed.”

“I could kneel to you, to worship you, if you would, Clara!”

“Kneel to Heaven, not to me, Willoughby.  I am—­I wish I were able to tell what I am.  I may be inconstant; I do not know myself.  Think; question yourself whether I am really the person you should marry.  Your wife should have great qualities of mind and soul.  I will consent to hear that I do not possess them, and abide by the verdict.”

“You do; you do possess them!” Willoughby cried.  “When you know better what the world is, you will understand my anxiety.  Alive, I am strong to shield you from it; dead, helpless—­that is all.  You would be clad in mail, steel-proof, inviolable, if you would . . .  But try to enter into my mind; think with me, feel with me.  When you have once comprehended the intensity of the love of a man like me, you will not require asking.  It is the difference of the elect and the vulgar; of the ideal of love from the coupling of the herds.  We will let it drop.  At least, I have your hand.  As long as I live I have your hand.  Ought I not to be satisfied?  I am; only I see further than most men, and feel more deeply.  And now I must ride to my mother’s bedside.  She dies Lady