Herbert was at her side in an instant. “Elsie! Elsie!” he cried. “Love is master. I’ve come back to you, strengthened, purified, ennobled at your hands. Do not scorn the gift now. It is richer than all else I ever offered you.”
But Elsie had no answer to make. For the first time in her life she fainted, and lay a veritable picture of death in Herbert’s arms. “Dear God,” he cried, “not this! Not now with our work all before us! Let me keep her lest I grow slothful in the service of her dear Master!”
Down on his knees beside the frail form, chafing the thin hands and with the tears chasing each other in torrents over his face, Herbert knelt, too frightened, too heart-broken to be of any service in Margaret’s hasty efforts at resuscitation.
Joy seldom kills, and Elsie slowly came back to life and love with the shadow of the old smile on her lips.
“Herbert,” she whispered as, still faint, but supremely happy, she rested her head on his shoulder, “the old wilful, independent Elsie is dead, and I want to prove to you hereafter how patient and submissive I can be.”
“Well, then,” said Herbert, after one of those eloquent silences which “the world that dearly loves a lover” can readily interpret—“well, then, I’m going to take you at your word; for to-morrow at high noon, in society vernacular, I shall be here with license, priest, Helen, and all the rest of us, prepared to hear a very meek ‘I will’ from those white lips.”
“But I have no wedding-gown!”
“Put on your best calico,” said Herbert composedly. “So long as I can see you wear that glad light in your eyes and the old happy smile on your lips, I shall always feel that you are clothed in radiant attire.”
One evening several days after the wedding, Gilbert came home to Margaret with an inscrutable smile on his face. “Margaret,” he said composedly, “I have come to the conclusion that your occupation as home-maker is about gone.”
“What do you mean?” she cried aghast.