And Culverhouse and I stood before him, and he joined our hands, and we made our vows, and he pronounced us man and wife before all assembled there.

And whether it be binding wedlock or no, it is to us a solemn betrothal made before God and man; and not all the commands thou couldst lay upon me, my father, could make me stand up and vow myself to another as I have vowed myself to Culverhouse.

I should hold myself forsworn; I should be guilty of the vilest crime in the world.

Thou wilt not ask it of me.

Thou canst not know, even as I do not know, whether that wedlock is not valid before man, as it is before God." A thunderbolt falling between them could scarcely have produced more astonishment and dismay.