not, I trow not, or I'd make thee no true wife.

_Paul._ It but puts thee to needless torment.

_Olive._ Torment! torment! Think of what he this moment bears! Oh,
my father, my father! Paul Bayley, why have I wedded you this
dreadful day!

_Paul._ Hush! Thy father wished it, sweetheart.

_Olive._ I swear to you I'll never love any other than my father. I
love you not.

_Paul._ Thou needst not, poor lass!

_Olive_ (_clinging to him_). Nay, I love thee, but I hate myself for
it on this day.

_Paul_ (_caressing her_). Poor lass! Poor lass!

_Olive._ Why wear I this bridal gear, and my father over yonder on
his dreadful death-bed? Why could you not have gone your own way and
let me gone mine all the rest of my life in black apparel,
a-mourning for my father? That would have beseemed me. This needed
not have been so; it needed never have been so.

_Paul._ Never? I tell thee, sweet, as well say to these apple
blossoms that they need never be apples, and to that rose-bush
against the wall that its buds need not be roses. In faith, we be
far set in that course of nature, dear, with the apple blossoms and
the rose-buds, where the beginning cannot be without the end. Our
own motion be lost, and we be swept along with a current that is
mightier than death, whether we would have it so or not.

_Olive._ I know not. I only know I would be faithful to my poor
father. But 'twas his last wish that I should wed thee thus.

_Paul._ Yes, dear.

_Olive._ He said so that morning before his trial. Oh, Paul, I can
see it now, the trial! I have been to the trial every day since.
Shall I go every day of my life? Perchance thou may often come home
and find thy wife gone to the trial, and no supper. I will go on my
wedding-day; my father shall have no slights put upon him. I can see
him stand there, mute. They cry out upon him and mock him and lay
false charges upon him, and he stands mute. The judge declares the
dreadful penalty, and he stands mute. Oh, my father, my poor father!
I tell ye my father will not mind anything. The Governor and the
justices may command him as they will, the afflicted may clamor and
gibe as they will, and I may pray to him, but he will not mind, he
will stand mute. I tell ye there be not power enough in the colony
to make him speak. Ye know not my father. He will have the best of
it.

_Paul._ Thou speakest like his daughter now. Keep thyself up to
this, sweet. The daughter of a hero should