But useless as I may be, count on me, now and always, as your friend--"
He moved close to me before I could say more, and took my hand. He murmured in my ear,
"May I count on you one day as the nearest and dearest friend of all? Will you forgive me, Mary, if I own that I love you? You have taught me to love, as you have taught me to hope. It is in your power to lighten my hard lot. You can recompense me for all that I have suffered; you can rouse me to struggle for my freedom and my rights. Be the good angel of my life! Forgive me, love me, rescue me--be my wife!"
I don't know how it happened. I found myself in his arms--and I answered him in a kiss. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I dare say I was guilty, in accepting him, of the rashest act that ever a woman committed. Very good. I didn't care then--I don't care now. I was then, and I am now, the happiest woman living.
VII. IT was necessary that either he or I should tell my father of what had passed between us. On reflection, I thought it best that I should make the disclosure. The day after the picnic, I repeated to my father Roland's melancholy narrative, as a necessary preface to the announcement that I had promised to be Roland's wife.
My father saw the obvious objections to the marriage. He warned me of the imprudence which I had contemplated committing in the strongest terms. Our prospect of happiness, if we married, would depend entirely on our capacity to legally supersede the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission. Success in this arduous undertaking was, to say the least of it, uncertain. The commonest prudence pointed to the propriety of delaying our marriage until the doubtful experiment had been put to the proof.
This reasoning was unanswerable. It was, nevertheless, completely thrown away upon me.
When did a woman in love ever listen to reason? I believe there is no instance of it on record. My father's wise words of caution had no chance against Roland's fervent entreaties. The days of his residence at Eastbourne were drawing to a close. If I let him return to the asylum an unmarried man, months, years perhaps, might pass before our union could take place. Could I expect him, could I expect any man, to endure that cruel separation, that unrelieved suspense? I His mind had been sorely tried already; his mind might give way under it. These were the arguments that carried weight with them, in my judgment! I was of age, and free to act as I pleased. You are welcome, if you like, to consider me the most foolish and the most obstinate of women. In sixteen days from the date of the picnic Roland and I were privately married at Eastbourne.
My father--more grieved than angry, poor man--declined to be present at the ceremony; in justice to himself. My brother gave me away at the altar.
Roland and I spent the afternoon of the wedding-day and the earlier part of the evening together. At nine o'clock he returned to the doctor's house, exactly as usual; having previously explained to me that he was in the power of the Court of Chancery, and that until we succeeded in setting aside the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission there was a serious necessity for keeping the marriage strictly secret. My husband and I kissed, and said good-by till tomorrow, as the clock struck the hour. I little thought, while I looked after him from the street-door, that months on months were to pass before I saw Roland again.
A hurried note from my husband reached me the next morning. Our marriage had been discovered (we never could tell by whom), and we had been betrayed to the doctor. Roland was then on his way back to the asylum. He had been warned that force would be used if he resisted. Knowing that resistance would be interpreted, in his case, as a new outbreak of madness, he had wisely submitted. "I have made the sacrifice," the letter concluded; "it is now for you to help me. Attack the Commission in Lunacy, and be quick about it!"
We lost no time in preparing for the attack. On the day when I received the news of our misfortune we left Eastbourne for London, and at once took measures to obtain the best legal advice.
My dear father--though I was far from deserving his kindness--entered into the matter heart and soul. In due course of time, we presented a petition to the Lord Chancellor, praying that the decision of the Lunacy Commission might be set aside.
We supported our petition by quoting the evidence of Roland's friends and neighbors, during his three years' residence in the Lake country, as a free man. These worthy people (being summoned before the Lunacy Commission) had one and all agreed that he was, as to their judgment and experience, perfectly quiet, harmless, and sane. Many of them had gone out shooting with him. Others had often accompanied him in sailing excursions on the lake. Do people trust a madman with a gun, and with the management of a boat? As to the "act of violence," which the heirs at law and the next of kin had made the means of imprisoning Roland in the mad-house, it amounted to this: he had lost his temper, and had knocked a man down who had offended him. Very wrong, no doubt; but if that is a proof of madness, what thousands of lunatics are still at large! Another instance produced to prove his insanity was still more absurd. It was solemnly declared that he put an image of the Virgin Mary in his boat, when he went out on his sailing excursions! I have seen the image--it was a very beautiful work of art. Was Roland mad to admire it, and take it with him? His religious convictions leaned toward Catholicism. If he betrayed insanity in adorning his boat with an image of the Virgin Mary, what is the mental condition of most of the ladies in Christendom who wear the cross as an ornament round their necks? We advanced these arguments in our petition, after quoting the evidence of the witnesses. And more than this, we even went the length of admitting, as an act of respect toward the Court, that my poor husband might be eccentric in some of his opinions and habits. But we put it to the authorities, whether better results might not be expected from placing him under the care of a wife who loved him, and whom he loved, than from shutting him up in an asylum, among incurable madmen as his companions for life.