This is a subject too sacred to
be discussed in its mercenary bearings; settle that question with yourself
as you will, but let me hear no more of it."
Daphne was silenced; for the first time in her remembrance of him she had
seen her uncle driven to positive severity, to anger even, in opposition to
the truth which his heart refused to accept. When he was calmer he began to
reason with her, to uphold her in the true faith, against her seeming self,
in these profane and ruthless disclosures.
"You are morbid," he declared, "oversensitive, from dwelling too long on
this painful chapter of your life. No one knows better than myself what
disorders of the imagination may result from a mood of the soul, a passing
mood,--the pains of growth, perhaps. You are a woman now; but let the
woman not be too hard upon the girl that she was. After what you have been
through quite lately, and for two years past, I pronounce you mentally
unfit to cope with your own condition. Say that you did not promise him in
words; the promise was given no less in spirit. How else could he have been
so exaltedly sure? He never was before. You had never before, I think,
given him any grounds for hope?"
"No; I was always honest before," said Daphne humbly.
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