e to that pass!

WILKENS.

Well. I see you'll risk it. You also are a queer mother. But I am not so
indifferent as you, and I will not have a catastrophe on my conscience,
if I can prevent it. I have most to lose by this. To be brief: If you
leave him and come with your children to me, I shall have it settled
that very hour that you and your children are to be my heirs. Till
tomorrow noon you have plenty of time to consider the matter. If by noon
tomorrow you are at the Boundary Inn, where I will wait for you, then
we'll go at once into town to the notary; if you are not there--all
right also. But I'll be a scoundrel--and you know I am as good as my
word--and cursed be my hand, if after that it ever gives a piece of
bread either to you or your children.

[_Exit_.]

SOPHY (_quite overcome; then follows him anxiously and hastily_).

But, cousin! Cousin Wilkens!

SCENE II

MARY _alone; then_ SOPHY _returning_.

MARY (_has a letter in her hand_).

Why did I take it till I had considered matters?--and then I had it in
my hand. And Katharine, too, was so quickly gone!--I should not have
taken it!

SOPHY (_reappearing_).

Those cruel men! Prayers avail nothing. What have you there, Mary?

MARY.

A letter from Robert.

SOPHY.

If your father should see that!

MARY.

I cannot understand at all how I came to accept it; but I felt so sorry
for Robert. Katharine told me he was down in the Dell, and waiting. Then
I again recollected my dream of last night.

SOPHY.

A dream?

MARY.

I dreamt I was at the spring among the willows in my favorite spot, and
was sitting among the many colored flowers and looking up into the sky.
There I saw a thunder-storm, and I became as depressed as if I were to
die. And the child, you know, the one that had been with me fourteen
years ago when I lost my way, was sitting beside me and said: Poor Mary!
and pulled the bridal wreath out of my hair, and in place of it fastened
to my bosom a large blood-red rose. Then I fell backwards into the
grass, I knew not how. Yonder in the village the bells were ringing, and
the singing of the birds, the chirping of the crickets, the soft evening
breeze in the willows above me--all that seemed like a lullaby. And the
turf sank down with me lower and ever lower, and the chimes and the
singing sounded ever more distant--the sky became blue once more, and I
felt so light and free--

SOPHY.

A strange dream! Have you opened the lett