"I fell at her feet. I kissed the hem of her robe. In that moment I adored her. 'O best and fairest!' I cried, 'I will make you happy. I will fill your hopes to the full. You shall ride in a carriage, and your will shall be a law to those who smile in scorn upon you now, and you will be—'
"'Mistress Felt, of most honorable degree,' she finished, with the half laughing disdain she could never keep long out of her words.
"And thus I became again her slave, and lived in that sweet, if servile, condition till the hour of our nuptials came, and I went to conduct her to the church where, in sight of half the town, she was to be made my wife. Shall I ever forget that morning? It was a December day, but the heavens were blue and the earth white, and not a cloud bespoke a rising storm. As for me, I walked on air, all the more that I knew Urquhart was out of town and would not be present at the wedding. He had gone away on some behest of Miss Dudleigh's immediately after the last interview I have mentioned, and would not come back, or so I had been told, till after Miss Leighton had been Mistress Felt for a week. So there was nothing to mar my day or make my entrance into Miss Dudleigh's house anything but one of promise. I saw Miss Dudleigh first. She was standing in the vast colonial hall when I entered, and in her gala robes, and with the sunshine on her head, she looked almost happy. Yet she was greatly changed from her old self, and I felt much like pouring out my soul to her and bidding her to break a tie that would never bring her peace, or even honor. But I feared to shatter my own hopes. Selfish being that I was, I dreaded to have her made free, lest— What? My thoughts did not interpret my fears, for at that moment a sunbeam struck down the stairs and through my heart, and, looking up, I saw Marah descending, and thought and reason flew to greet her.
"She had been robed by her cousin's bounteous hand, and her dress of stiff yellow brocade burned in the morning light with almost as much brilliance as the sunshine itself. Folded across her bust was the wonderful stomacher, under whose making I had suffered so many emotions that each sprig of work upon it seemed to have its own tale of misery for my eyes, and fixed against this and her white throat were those masses of flowers without which her beauty never seemed quite complete. In her hair, which was piled high above her forehead, flashed a huge golden comb, and upon her arm gleamed two bracelets, whose exquisite workmanship was well known to me, for they had been an heirloom in my family for years. She was fair as a dream, proud as a queen, cold as a statue, but she was mine! Was not the minister waiting for us at the church? and were not the horses that were to take us there even now champing their bits before the door?
"She rode with me. Four white horses had been attached to Miss Dudleigh's coach, and behind these we passed in state out through the noble park that separated this lordly house from the rest, into the closely packed streets, where hundreds waited to catch a glimpse of the most beautiful woman in Albany, going to be made a bride.
"Miss Dudleigh rode behind us in another coach, and the murmur which greeted our appearance did not die out till after she had passed, for they knew she would soon be riding the same road with even greater state, if not with so much beauty; and the people of Albany loved Honora Dudleigh, for she was ever a beneficent spirit to them, and more than ever, since a shadow had fallen upon her happiness, and she had come to know what misery was.
"And thus we passed on, Marah with a glowing flush of triumph burning on her cheek and I in one of those moods of happiness whose rapture was so unalloyed that I scarcely heard the half-laughing comments of those who saw with wonder how plain was the man who had succeeded in carrying off this well-known beauty. And the greater part of the way was traversed, and the bells of the old North Church became audible, and in a moment more we should have seen the belfry of the church itself rising before us, when, suddenly, the woman that I loved, the woman whose nuptials the minister was waiting to celebrate, gave a great start, and, turning quickly toward me, cried:
"'Turn the horses' heads! I do not go to the church with you to-day. Not if you kill me, Mark Felt!'
"You have heard of stray bullets coming singing from some unknown quarter and striking a person seated at a feast. Such a bullet struck me then. I looked at her in horror."