"And we are to stand by to-morrow and witness this farce carried out to
the final culmination!" Mr. Britton commented, in low tones; "it is
worse than a farce,--it is a crime! My boy, how will you be able to
stand it?" he suddenly inquired.
Darrell turned away abruptly. "I could not stand it; I would not attempt
it, except that my presence will comfort and help her," he answered. And
so they parted for the night.
The following morning dawned clear and cloudless, the spotless, unbroken
expanse of snow gleaming in the sunlight as though strewn with myriads
of jewels; it seemed as if Earth herself had donned her bridal array in
honor of the occasion.
"An ideal wedding-day!" was the universal exclamation; and such it was.
The wedding was to take place at noon. A little more than an hour before
the bridal party was to leave the house Darrell was walking up and down
the double libraries upstairs, whither he had been summoned by a note
from Kate, begging him to await her there.
His thoughts went back to that summer night less than six months gone,
when he had waited her coming in those very rooms. Not yet six months,
and he seemed to have lived years since then! He recalled her as she
appeared before him that night in all the grace and witchery of lovely
maidenhood just opening into womanhood. How beautiful, how joyous she
had been! without a thought of sorrow, and now---A faint sound like the breath of the wind through the leaves roused him,
and Kate stood before him once more. Kate in her bridal robes, their
shimmering folds trailing behind her like the gleaming foam in the wake
of a ship on a moonlit sea, while her veil, like a filmy cloud,
enveloped her from head to foot.
There was a moment of silence in which Darrell studied the face before
him; the same, yet not the same, as on that summer night. The childlike
naïveté, the charming piquancy, had given place to a sweet seriousness,
but it was more tender, more womanly, more beautiful.
She came a step nearer, and, raising her clasped hands, placed them
within Darrell's.
"I felt that I must see you once more, John," she said, in the low,
sweet tones that always thrilled his very soul; "there is something I
wish to say to you, if I can only make my meaning clear, and I feel sure
you will understand me. I want to pledge to you, John, for time and for
eternity, my heart's best and purest love. Though forced into this union
with a man whom I can never love, yet I will be true as a wife; God
knows I would not be otherwise; that is farthest from my thoughts. But I
have learned much within the past few months, and I have learned that
there is a love far above all passion and sensuality; a love tender as a
wife's, pure as a mother's, and lasting as eternity itself. Such love I
pledge you, John Darrell. Do you understand me?"