Lenoble--I have consented to be
his wife."
"Diana!" cried Charlotte, with a sternness of manner that was alarming in
so gentle a creature, "it shall never be!"
"What dear?"
"The sacrifice! No, dear, no! I understand it all. For your cruel
mercenary heartless designing father's sake, you are going to marry a man
whom you can't love. You are going to offer up your poor bruised desolate
heart on the altar of duty. Ah, dear, you can't think I forget what you
told me only two short months ago--though I seem selfish and frivolous,
and am always talking about _him_, and parading my happiness, as it must
seem to you, reckless of the wounds so newly healed in your noble
unselfish heart. But I do not altogether forget, Diana, and such a
sacrifice as this I will not allow. I know you have resigned him to me--I
know you have thrust him from your heart, as you told me that night. But
the hollow aching void that is left in your lonely heart shall be sacred,
Di. No stranger's image shall pollute it. You shall not sacrifice your
own peace to your father's selfishness. No, dear, no! With mamma and me
you will always have a home. You need stoop to no cruel barter such as
this marriage."
And hereupon Miss Halliday wept over and caressed her friend, as the
confidante of Agamemnon's daughter may have wept over and caressed that
devoted young princess after the divination of Calchas had become common
talk in the royal household.
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