Cast Adrift | Page 6

Edith, guarding his speech when Mrs. Dinneford was
present. He had faith in true principles, and with these he sought to
guard her life. He knew that she would be pushed forward into society,
and knew but too well that one so pure and lovely in mind as well as
person would become a centre of attraction, and that he, standing on the
outside as it were, would have no power to save her from the saddest of
all fates if she were passive and her mother resolute. Her safety must lie
in herself.
Edith was brought out early. Mrs. Dinneford could not wait. At
seventeen she was thrust into society, set up for sale to the highest
bidder, her condition nearer that of a Circassian than a Christian
maiden, with her mother as slave-dealer.
So it was and so, it is. You may see the thing every day. But it did not
come out according to Mrs. Dinneford's programme. There was a
highest bidder; but when he came for his slave, she was not to be
found.
Well, the story is trite and brief--the old sad story. Among her suitors
was a young man named Granger, and to him Edith gave her heart. But

the mother rejected him with anger and scorn. He was not rich, though
belonging to a family of high character, and so fell far below her
requirements. Under a pressure that almost drove the girl to despair, she
gave her consent to a marriage that looked more terrible than death. A
month before the time fixed for, its consummation, she barred the
contract by a secret union with Granger.
Edith knew her mother's character too well to hope for any
reconciliation, so far as Mr. Granger was concerned. Coming in as he
had done between her and the consummation of her highest ambition,
she could never feel toward him anything but the most bitter hatred;
and so, after remaining at home for about a week after her secret
marriage, she wrote this brief letter to her mother and went away:
"My DEAR MOTHER: I do not love Spencer Wray, and would rather
die than marry him, and so I have made the marriage to which my heart
has never consented, an impossibility. You have left me no other
alternative but this. I am the wife of George Granger, and go to cast my
lot with his.
"Your loving daughter,
"EDITH."
To her father she wrote:
"My DEAR, DEAR FATHER: If I bring sorrow to your good and
loving heart by what I have done, I know that it will be tempered with
joy at my escape from a union with one from whom my soul has ever
turned with irrepressible dislike. Oh, my father, you can understand, if
mother cannot, into what a desperate strait I have been brought. I am a
deer hunted to the edge of a dizzy chasm, and I leap for life over the
dark abyss, praying for strength to reach the farther edge. If I fail in the
wild effort, I can only meet destruction; and I would rather be bruised
to death on the jagged rocks than trust myself to the hounds and hunters.
I write passionately--you will hardly recognize your quiet child; but the
repressed instincts of my nature are strong, and peril and despair have
broken their bonds. I did not consult you about the step I have taken,
because I dared not trust you with my secret. You would have tried to
hold me back from the perilous leap, fondly hoping for some other way
of escape. I had resolved on putting an impassable gulf between me and
danger, if I died in the attempt. I have taken the leap, and may God care
for me!

"I have laid up in my heart of hearts, dearest of fathers, the precious
life-truths that so often fell from your lips. Not a word that you ever
said about the sacredness of marriage has been forgotten. I believe with
you that it is a little less than crime to marry when no love exists--that
she who does so, sells her heart's birthright for some mess of pottage,
sinks down from the pure level of noble womanhood, and traffics away
her person, is henceforth meaner in quality if not really vile.
"And so, my father, to save myself from such a depth of degradation
and misery, I take my destiny into my own hands. I have grown very
strong in my convictions and purposes in the last four weeks. My sight
has become suddenly clear. I am older by many years.
"As for George Granger, all I can now say is that I love him, and
believe him to be worthy of my love. I am willing to trust him, and am