Christians Mistake | Page 8

of a
religious nature. She said her prayers duly, and she had one habit--or
superstition, some might sneeringly call it--that the last thing before she
went on a journey she always opened her Bible; read a verse or two,
and knelt down, if only to say, "God, take care of me, and bring me
safe back again;" petitions that in many a wretched compelled
wandering were not so uncalled for as some might suppose. Before this

momentous journey she did the same; but, instead of a Bible, it
happened to be the children's Prayer-Book which she took up; it opened
at the Marriage Service, which they had been inquisitively conning
over; and the first words which flashed upon Christian's eyes were
those which had two hours ago passed over her deaf ears, and dull,
uncomprehending heart--
"For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and be
joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh."
She started, as if only now she began to comprehend the full force of
that awful union--"one flesh" and "till death us do part."
Mrs. Ferguson tried the door, and knocked.
"Dr. Grey is waiting, my dear. You must not keep your husband
waiting."
"My husband!" and again, came the wild look, as of a free creature
suddenly caught, tied, and bound. "What have I done? oh what have I
done? Is it too late?"
Ay, it was too late.
Many a woman has married with far less excuse that Christian did--
married for money or position, or in a cowardly yielding to family
persuasion, some one who she knew did not love her, or whom she did
not love, with the only sort of love which makes marriage sacred. What
agonies such women must have endured, if they had any spark of
feminine feeling left alive, they themselves know; and what Christian,
far more guiltless than they, also endured during the three minutes that
she kept Mrs. Ferguson waiting at the locked door, was a thing never to
be spoken of, but also never to be forgotten during the longest and
happiest lifetime. It was a warning that made her--even her--to the end
of her days, say to every young woman she knew, "Beware! Marry for
love, or never marry at all."
When she descended, every ray of color had gone out of her face--it

was white and passionless as stone; but she kissed the children all
around, gave a little present to Isabella, who had been her only
bridesmaid, shook hands and said a word or two of thanks to honest
James Ferguson, her "father" for the day, and then found herself driving
through the familiar streets--not alone. She never would be alone any
more.
With a shudder, a sense of dread indescribable, she remembered this.
All her innocent, solitary, dreamy days quite over, her happiness.
vanished; her regrets become a crime. The responsibility of being no
longer her own, but another's--bound fixedly and irrevocably by the
most solemn vow that can be given or taken, subject to no limitations.
provisions, or exception while life remained. Oh. it was awful--awful!
She could have shrieked and leaped out of the carriage, to run wildly
anywhere--to the world's end--when she felt her hand taken, softly but
firmly.
"My dear, how cold you are! Let me make you warm if I can."
And then, in his own quiet, tender way, Dr. Grey wrapped her up in her
shawl and rolled a rug about her feet. She took no notice, submitted
passively, and neither spoke a word more till they had driven on for
two or three miles, into a country road leading to a village where
Avonsbridge people sometimes went for summer lodgings.
Christian knew it well. There, just before her father's death, he and she
had lived, for four delicious, miserable, momentous weeks. She had
never seen the place since, but now she recognized it--every tree, every
field, the very farm-house garden, once so bright, now lying deep in
snow. She began tremble in every limb.
"Why are we here? This is not our right road. Where are we going?"
"I did not mean to come this way, but we missed the train, and cannot
reach London tonight; so I thought we would post across country to
E___," naming a quiet cathedral town, "where you can rest, and go on
when or where you please. Will that do?"

"Oh yes."
"You are not dissatisfied? We could not help missing the Train, you
see."
"Oh no."
The quick, sharp, querulous answers--that last refuge of a fictitious
strength that was momentarily breaking down--he saw it all, this good
man, this generous, pitiful-hearted man, who knew what sorrow was,
and who for a whole year had watched her with the acuteness which
love alone teaches,