How then could sh endure to take away
their life's best joy, their richest hope? It was a hard thing; and
many moments passed before she could nerve her strong spirit to
utter the first word. Rosalie, anxious and impatient, too, but
unsuspecting, at last exclaimed,
"What can it be that so much troubles you, mother?"
Then Mary Melville spoke, but with a voice so soft and sad, so faint
with emotion, that it seemed not at all her voice. She said,
"I want you to consider that what I say to you, dear child, has
given me more pain even to think of than I have ever felt before.
Duncan has told me of your engagement to marry with him; and it has
been my duty, my most sorrowful duty, oh! believe me, to tell him
that such a tie must never unite you. He can never be your husband;
you can never be his wife."
She paused, exhausted by her emotion; she could not utter another
syllable. Rosalie, who had watched her with fixed astonishment as
she listened to the words, was the first to speak again, and she
tried to say, calmly,
"Of course, you have a reason for saying so. It is but just that I
should know it."
"It cannot _be_ known. If I had ever in my life deceived you,
Rosalie, you might doubt me now, when I assure you that an
impediment, which cannot be named, exists to the marriage.
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