Olive. Loyalty doth good to the heart that holds it, if to no other.  Think you I’ll forsake my father because ’tis my wedding-day, Paul?  Oh, I trow 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 have some brave stuff in her.  Thy father does a greater deed than thou knowest.  His dumbness will save the colonies from more than thou dreamest of.  ’Twill put an end to this dreadful madness; he himself hath foretold it. [A clamor is heard.