require?" said Mr. Ferrars.

"I require nothing; I do not wish to marry."

"But, my daughter, my dearest daughter," said Mr. Ferrars, "bear with
the anxiety of a parent who is at least devoted to you. Our separation
would be my last and severest sorrow, and I have had many; but there is
no necessity to consider that case, for Nigel is content, is more than
content, to live as your husband under this roof."

"So he told me."

"And that removed one objection that you might naturally feel?"

"I certainly should never leave you, sir," said Myra, "and I told Nigel
so; but that contingency had nothing to do with my decision. I declined
his offer, because I have no wish to marry."

"Women are born to be married," said Mr. Ferrars.

"And yet I believe most marriages are unhappy," said Myra.

"Oh! if your objection to marry Nigel arises from an abstract objection
to marriage itself," said Mr. Ferrars, "it is a subject which we might
talk over calmly, and perhaps remove your prejudices."

"I have no objection against marriage," rejoined Myra. "It is likely
enough that I may marry some day, and probably make an unhappy marriage;
but that is not the question before us. It is whether I should marry
Nigel. That cannot be, my dear father, and he knows it. I have assured
him so in a manner which cannot be mistaken."

"We are a doomed family!" exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Ferrars, clasping
his hands.

"So I have long felt," said Myra. "I can bear our lot; but I want no
strangers to be introduced to share its bitterness, and soothe us with
their sympathy."

"You speak like a girl," said Mr. Ferrars, "and a headstrong girl, which
you always have been. You know not what you are talking about. It is a
matter of life or death. Your decorous marriage would have saved us from
absolute ruin."

"Alone, I can meet absolute ruin," said Myra. "I have long contemplated
such a contingency, and am prepared for it. My marriage with Nigel could
hardly save you, sir, from such a visitation, if it be impending. But
I trust in that respect, if in no other, you have used a little of
the language of exaggeration. I have never received, and I have never
presumed to seek, any knowledge of your affairs; but I have assumed,
that for your life, somehow or other, you would be permitted to exist
without disgrace. If I survive you, I have neither care nor fear."

CHAPTER XXVIII

In the following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick Stre