`` Will you promise me that solemnly ? '' she said . `` Promise it on mother 's Bible . '' Rosemary assented at once , quite willing to humour Ellen . What did it matter ? She knew quite well she would never want to marry any one . Her love had gone down with Martin Crawford to the deeps of the sea ; and without love she could not marry any one . So she promised readily , though Ellen made rather a fearsome rite of it . They clasped hands over the Bible , in their mother 's vacant room , and both vowed to each other that they would never marry and would always live together . Ellen 's condition improved from that hour . She soon regained her normal cheery poise . For ten years she and Rosemary lived in the old house happily , undisturbed by any thought of marrying or giving in marriage . Their promise sat very lightly on them . Ellen never failed to remind her sister of it whenever any eligible male creature crossed their paths , but she had never been really alarmed until John Meredith came home that night with Rosemary . As for Rosemary , Ellen 's obsession regarding that promise had always been a little matter of mirth to her -- until lately . Now , it was a merciless fetter , self-imposed but never to be shaken off . Because of it to-night she must turn her face from happiness . It was true that the shy , sweet , rosebud love she had given to her boy-lover she could never give to another . But she knew now that she could give to John Meredith a love richer and more womanly . She knew that he touched deeps in her nature that Martin had never touched -- that had not , perhaps , been in the girl of seventeen to touch .
And she must send him away to-night -- send him back to his lonely hearth and his empty life and his heart-breaking problems , because she had promised Ellen , ten years before , on their mother 's Bible , XXXXX she would never marry .
For So at by from in on over that though