Two or three persons sauntered up to the church-door, attracted by the unusual presence of a carriage in that remote place, and some, more curious than the rest, came inside, and drew, open-mouthed, toward the altar, while the marriage ceremony was being performed.
When the bride turned from the altar, shivering and pale with intense excitement, two or three of these persons secured a full view of her face, and never forgot it afterward; for anything more darkly, richly beautiful than her features had never met their eyes.
Ruth was indeed lovely in this supreme moment of her life. The pallor of concentrated emotion gave depth and almost startling brilliancy to those great eyes, bright as stars, and soft as velvet, which were for one moment turned upon them. All else might have been forgotten in after years; but that one glance was burnt like enamel on more than one memory when Walton Hurst's marriage was made known to the world.
The vestry was dark and damp when they entered it, followed by a grim old clerk, and at a more respectful distance after them came three or four of the villagers, who only saw the shadowy picture of a man and woman bending over a huge book—the one writing his name with a bold dash of the hand, the other trembling so violently that for a moment she was compelled to lay the pen down, while she looked into her husband's face with a pathetic plea for patience with her weakness.
But the names were written at last, and the young couple left the church in haste, as they had entered it—the bride with a bit of paper held tightly in her hand, the bridegroom looking happy and elated, as if he had conquered some enemy.
As they drove away, two or three of the villagers, who had been drawn into the church, turned back from the porch, and stole into the vestry where the clerk stood by his open register, examining a piece of gold that had been thrust into his hand, with a look of greedy unbelief.
The clerk was saying,
"See, neighbor Knox, it is gold—pure gold. Did any one ever see the like? There is the face of Her Majesty, plain as the sun in yon sky. Oh, if a few more such rare windfalls would but come this way, my place would be worth having."
The sight of this gold only whetted the villagers' curiosity to fresh vigor. They became eager to know what great man it was who had come among them, with such shadow-like stillness, leaving only golden traces of his presence in the church; for the clerk hinted, with glee, that the pastor had been rewarded fourfold for his share in the ceremony. Then one after another of these persons looked at the register. It chanced that the record was made on the top of a blank page; thus the two names were rendered more than usually conspicuous. This was the record:
Walton Hurst—Ruth Jessup.