It means,--God help me to speak out--a home without
the sanctity of memories; a husband without the honors he has been
accustomed to enjoy; a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into
her breast; and children, yes, perhaps children from whose innocent
lips the sacred word of grandfather can never fall without wakening a
blush on the cheeks of their parents, which all their lovesome
prattle will be helpless to chase away."
"Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go
their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of
may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own
blood, but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you
to sit. The world will never know, whether you come with me or not,
that Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then
give me the happiness of striving to make such amends for the past,
that you too, will forget you ever bore any other name than the one
you now honor so truly?"
"O do not," she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion
that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance.
"Mr. Blake," said she, "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice
of love pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is
in my sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor.
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