"Shall I?" I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful
in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity;
at his brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep
and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and
fancied myself in idea HIS WIFE. Oh! it would never do! As his
curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with
him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with
him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and
vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at
his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:
profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should
suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my
body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind
would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to:
my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments
of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be
only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there
fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his
measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife--at his side
always, and always restrained, and always checked--forced to keep
the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly
and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital
after vital--THIS would be unendurable.
"St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
"Well?" he answered icily.
"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary,
but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you."
"A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the
whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out
with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me?
How can we be for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes
amidst savage tribes--and unwed?"
"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well
as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like
yourself."
"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as
such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us
both. And for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you
have a woman's heart and--it would not do."