Together | Page 2

peaceful! And
yet--hers must be different, must strike deeper. For the first time she
raised her shining eyes to the man at her side...
"I, John, take thee Isabelle for my wedded wife, to have and to hold ...
in sickness and in health ... until death us do part ... and hereby I plight
thee my troth."
Those old words, heard so many times, which heretofore had echoed
without meaning to her,--she had vaguely thought them beautiful,--now
came freighted with sudden meaning, while from out the dreamlike
space around sounded the firm tones of the man at her side repeating
slowly, with grave pauses, word by word, the marriage oath. "I, John,
take thee Isabelle," that voice was saying, and she knew that the man
who spoke these words in his calm, grave manner was the one she had
chosen, to whom she had willed to give herself for all time,--presently
she would say it also,--for always, always, "until death us do part." He
was promising it with tranquil assurance,--fidelity, the eternal bond,
throughout the unknown years, out of the known present. "And hereby
I plight thee my troth." Without a tremor the man's assured voice
registered the oath--before God and man.
"I, Isabelle," and the priest took up with her this primal oath of fidelity,
body and soul. All at once the full personal import of the words pierced
her, and her low voice swelled unconsciously with her affirmation. She
was to be for always as she was now. They two had not been one
before: the words did not make them so now. It was their desire. But
the old divided selves, the old impulses, they were to die, here, forever.
She heard herself repeating the words after the minister. Her strong
young voice in the stillness of the chapel sounded strangely not her
own voice, but the voice of some unknown woman within her, who was
taking the oath for her in this barbaric ceremony whereby man and

woman are bound together. "And hereby I plight thee my troth,"--the
voice sank to a whisper as of prayer. Her eyes came back to the man's
face, searching for his eyes.
There were little beads of perspiration on his broad brow, and the
shaven lips were closely pressed together, moulding the face into lines
of will,--the look of mastery. What was he, this man, now her husband
for always, his hand about hers in sign of perpetual possession and
protection? What beneath all was he who had taken with her, thus
publicly, the mighty oath of fidelity, "until death us do part"? Each had
said it; each believed it; each desired it wholly. Perversely, here in the
moment of her deepest feeling, intruded the consciousness of broken
contracts, the waste of shattered purposes. Ah, but theirs was different!
This absolute oath of fidelity one to the other, each with his own will
and his own desire,--this irredeemable contract of union between man
and woman,--it was not always a binding sacrament. Often twisted and
broken, men and women promising in the belief of the best within them
what was beyond their power to perform. There were those in that very
chapel who had said these words and broken them, furtively or legally...
With them, of course, it would be different, would be the best; for she
conceived their love to be of another kind,--the enduring kind.
Nevertheless, just here, while the priest of society pronounced the final
words of union, something spoke within the woman's soul that it was a
strange oath to be taking, a strange manner of making two living beings
one!
"And I pronounce you man and wife," the words ran. Then the minister
hastened on into his little homily upon the marriage state. But the
woman's thought rested at those fateful words,--"man and wife,"--the
knot of the contract. There should fall a new light in her heart that
would make her know they were really one, having now been joined as
the book said "in holy wedlock." From this sacramental union of
persons there should issue to both a new spirit...
Her husband was standing firm and erect, listening with all the
concentration of his mind to what the minister was saying--not
tumultuously distracted--as though he comprehended the exact gravity

of this contract into which he was entering, as he might that of any
other he could make, sure of his power to fulfil all, confident before
Fate. She trembled strangely. Did she know him, this other self? In the
swift apprehension of life's depths which came through her heightened
mood she perceived that ultimate division lying between all human
beings, that impregnable fortress of the individual soul.... It was all
over. He looked tenderly at her. Her lips trembled with a serious
smile,--yes, they would understand