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!"
"As if I would! Oh, Herman, as if I would depend upon anything but your
dear love to give me all I need! Armed against you, am I? I do not
choose to be so! It is enough for me to know that I am your wife. I do
not care to be able to prove it; for, Herman, were it possible for you
to forsake me, I should not insist upon my 'rights'--I should die.
Therefore, why should I be armed with legal proofs against you, my
Herman, my life, my soul, my self? I will not continue so!" And with a
generous abandonment she drew from her bosom the marriage certificate,
tore it to pieces, and scattered it abroad, saying: "There now! I had
kept it as a love token, close to my heart, little knowing it was a
cold-blooded, cautious, legal proof, else it should have gone before,
where it has gone now, to the winds! There now, Herman, I am your own
wife, your own Nora, quite unarmed and defenseless before you; trusting
only to your faith for my happiness; knowing that you will never
willingly forsake me; but feeling that if you do, I should not pursue
you, but die!"