“Clara! to dedicate your life to our love!  Never one touch; not one whisper! not a thought, not a dream!  Could you—­it agonizes me to imagine . . . be inviolate? mine above?—­mine before all men, though I am gone:—­true to my dust?  Tell me.  Give me that assurance.  True to my name!—­Oh, I hear them.  ‘His relict!’ Buzzings about Lady Patterne.  ‘The widow.’  If you knew their talk of widows!  Shut your ears, my angel!  But if she holds them off and keeps her path, they are forced to respect her.  The dead husband is not the dishonoured wretch they fancied him, because he was out of their way.  He lives in the heart of his wife.  Clara! my Clara! as I live in yours, whether here or away; whether you are a wife or widow, there is no distinction for love—­I am your husband—­say it—­eternally.  I must have peace; I cannot endure the pain.  Depressed, yes; I have cause to be.  But it has haunted me ever since we joined hands.  To have you—­to lose you!”

“Is it not possible that I may be the first to die?” said Miss Middleton.

“And lose you, with the thought that you, lovely as you are, and the dogs of the world barking round you, might . . .  Is it any wonder that I have my feeling for the world?  This hand!—­the thought is horrible.  You would be surrounded; men are brutes; the scent of unfaithfulness excites them, overjoys them.  And I helpless!  The thought is maddening.  I see a ring of monkeys grinning.  There is your beauty, and man’s delight in desecrating.  You would be worried night and day to quit my name, to . . .  I feel the blow now.  You would have no rest for them, nothing to cling to without your oath.”

“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.”