The latter seemed the easiest method, and there was a great chance of the marriage, which it had been agreed should be delayed till Emily was nineteen, taking place much earlier, when events occurred which produced even a longer delay.
One of the first steps taken by Mr. Hastings to show his wife that her unreasonable opposition would have no effect upon him, was not only to remove the prohibition of those lovers' rambles which Mrs. Hastings had forbidden, but to send his daughter and her promised husband forth together on any pretext that presented itself. He took the opportunity of doing so, first, when his wife was present, and on the impulse of the moment, she ventured to object. One look--one word from her husband, however, silenced her; for they were a look and word too stern to be trifled with, and Emily went to dress for her walk; but she went with the tears in her eyes. She was grieved to find that all that appertained to her happiness was likely to become a cause of dissension between her father and her mother. Had Marlow not been concerned--had his happiness not been also at stake--she would have sacrificed any thing--every thing--to avoid such a result; but she felt she had no right to yield to caprice, where he was to suffer as well as herself.
The walk took place, and it might have been very sweet to both, had not the scene which had immediately preceded poured a drop of bitterness into their little cup of joy. Such walks were often renewed during the month that followed; but Emily was not so happy as she might have been; for she saw that her father assumed a sterner, colder tone towards his wife, and believed that she might be the unwilling cause of this painful alienation. She knew not that it proceeded partly from another source--that Mr. Hastings had discovered, or divined, that his wife had some feeling of increased power and authority from the fact of his having lost his large estates, and of her property being all that remained to them both.
Poor Emily! Marlow's love, that dream of joy, seemed destined to produce, for a time at least, nothing but grief and anxiety. Her reveries became more frequent, and more deep, and though her lover could call her from them in a moment, no one else had the power.