He
made three steps, and then fell on his face. Marion rushed toward
him, and tried to lift him, but could not. I put her aside gently,
and placed my hand on his heart.
"Marion," said I, "it is perhaps better as it is. He is dead!"
Fitzjames O'Brien
My Wife's Tempter
I
A PREDESTINED MARRIAGE
Elsie and I were to be married in less than a week. It was rather
a strange match, and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their
heads over it and said that no good would come. The way it came to
pass was thus.
I loved Elsie Burns for two years, during which time she refused me
three times. I could no more help asking her to have me, when the
chance offered, than I could help breathing or living. To love her
seemed natural to me as existence. I felt no shame, only sorrow,
when she rejected me; I felt no shame either when I renewed my
suit. The neighbors called me mean-spirited to take up with any
girl that had refused me as often as Elsie Burns had done; but what
cared I about the neighbors? If it is black weather, and the sun
is under a cloud every day for a month, is that any reason why the
poor farmer should not hope for the blue sky and the plentiful
burst of warm light when the dark month is over? I never entirely
lost heart.
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