human
Nevertheless, my darling, I cannot marry next week. I know you will fail to understand me. I know my father will fail to understand me. That is hard--the hardest part, but I am doing right. Some day you will acknowledge that. With my father dying I cannot stand up in white and call myself a bride. My marriage-day was to have been the entrance into Paradise to me. With a funeral so near, and so certain, it cannot be that. John--John--I--cannot--I cannot. We must not marry next week.
gpt
You put it off, then? You deny your dying father his dearest wish? That is not like you, Charlotte.
human
No, it is unlike me. Everything, always, again, will be unlike me. If you put it so, I deny my father his dearest wish.
gpt
Charlotte, I fail to understand you. You will not marry during your father's lifetime. But it may be very quiet--very--very quiet, I can manage that; and you need not leave him, you can still be altogether his daughter, and yet make him happy by letting him feel that you are also my wife; that I have the right to shield you, the right to love and comfort you. Come, Charlotte! come, my darling! we won't have any outward festivity, any outward rejoicing. This is but natural, this can be managed, and yet we may have that which is above and beyond it all--one another. We may be one in our sorrow instead of our joy.
human
Oh! if it could be,
gpt
It shall be, Charlotte; we will marry like that on the twentieth. I will manage it with your father.
human
No John! no, my dearest, my best beloved, I cannot be your wife. Loving you as I never--never--loved you before, I give you up; it is worse than the agony of death to me. But I give you up.
gpt
You postpone our marriage during your father's lifetime?
human
I postpone it--I do more--I break it off. Oh! John, don't look at me like that; pity me--pity me, my heart will break.
gpt
Charlotte! you are deceiving me; you have another reason for this?
human
If you will have it so,
gpt
You are keeping a secret from me.
human
I do not say so, but you are likely enough to think this,
gpt
Can you deny it?
human
I will not try, I know we must part.
gpt
If this is so, we must. A secret between husband and wife is fatal.
human
It would be, but I admit nothing, we cannot be husband and wife.
gpt
Never, Charlotte?
human
Never!
gpt
Lottie, tell me that secret; trust me; I know there is a secret, tell it to me, all of it, let me decide whether it must part us.
human
I cannot, my darling--my darling--I can say nothing, explain nothing, except that you and I must part.
gpt
If that is so, we must,
human
I LOVE HIM,