“You took my duty on yourself,” she conceded, but coldly.  “That was brotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me in return, destined to lay waste my whole life.  Released from this one great duty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others.  At the lift of a hand—­a finger—­I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one who beckoned in the name of the Cause.  No circumstances were to be considered; no other human duty or affection.  If it were to enter upon a fuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounter death and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and a good to be embraced with ardor.  Obedience was all, and obedience at a mere signal!  I took the oath and then—­”

“Yes, then—­” emphasized Hazen in wavering but peremptory tones.

“He told me what had led to all this misery.  That as yet this compact was between us two, and us two only.  That he had considered my youth, and in speaking of me to the Chief had held back my name even while promising my assistance.  That he should continue to consider it, by keeping my name in reserve till he had returned from his mission, and if that mission failed, or succeeded too well, and he did not return, I might regard myself as freed from the Cause, unless my enlarging nature led me to attach myself to it of my own free will.  That said, he went, and for a year I lived under the dread of his return and all the obligations that return would entail.  Then came tidings of his death, tidings for which he may not have been responsible, but which he never contradicted, and I thought myself free—­free to enjoy life, and the fortune that had so unexpectedly come to me; free to love and, alas! free to marry.  And that is why,” she pursued, in all the anguish of a dreadful retrospect, “I recoiled in such horror and hung, a dead weight on your arm, when on turning from the altar where we had just pledged ourselves to mutual love and mutual life, I saw among the faces before me the changed but still recognizable one of my brother, and beheld him make the fatal sign which meant, ‘You are wanted.  Come at once.’”

“Wretch!” issued from the frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom, as his glance flashed on Hazen.  “Had you no mercy?  Have you no mercy now, that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fanciful obligations; obligations which no human being has any right to impose upon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or unholy, he represents?”

“Mercy?  It is the weakness of the easy soul.  There is no ease here,” he cried, touching his breast with no gentle hand.