I became strong in my fearful dread of it.

I told him I detested, abhorred, loathed, hated him; that he might keep his riches, greatness, and ungainly self for those who wanted him; they were temptations too weak to move me.
"Of course, there was raving, and storming, threatening, terrible looks and denunciations, and I quailed and shrank like a coward, but was obstinate still.

Then as a dernier resort, he tried another bribe--the glorious one of liberty, the one he knew would conquer me, and it did.
He promised me freedom--if I married him, I might go out into the great unknown world, fetterless and free; and I, O! fool that I was! consented.

Not that my object was to stay with him one instant longer her my prison doors were opened; no, I was not quite so besotted as that--once out, and the little demon might look for me with last year's partridges.

Of course, those demoniac eyes read my heart like an open book; and when I pronounced the fatal 'yes,' he laughed in that delightful way of his own, which will probably be the last thing you will hear when you lay your head under the axe.
"I don't know who the clergyman who married us was; but he was a clergyman: there can be no doubt about that.