There are so many things to see to." It was only now that he began to talk of the wedding that I realized how, somewhere at the back of all the misery and shame, I had had a wild hope that Heaven might intervene and save me from the marriage.

I had not thought he would be in such a hurry, that he would give me no loophole of escape.

I could have cried out for a long day like any poor wretch condemned to the gallows.
"Don't you see that I am not ready?
I am not used to lovers," I cried, bursting into a paroxysm of tears, when he went on urging a speedy marriage.
At the sight of my tears he seemed dismayed and tried to comfort me, saying that I should have my own time and that I was the more desirable to him because I was not ready to fall into his arms..