Then the time came for them to return to Aldenmere, and great were the preparations. The little town of Leeholme was in a perfect fever of excitement. Triumphal arches were erected, flags were flying, the beautiful bells of Leeholme church pealed merrily, the tenants were all assembled to do honor to their lord.
“Welcome Home!” “Long Life to Lord and Lady Alden!” “A Bridal Welcome!” and hundreds of other mottoes decorated the flags and the arches. Through long lines of happy faces, through the music of cheering voices, bride and bridegroom drove to their ancient home.
People might have wondered why the bridegroom’s face grew sterner and paler as the thunder of a mighty welcome greeted him. Lady Clarice looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Ronald, how pleased they are to see us! What can we do for them?”
“There will be plenty of home-brewed ale, and as many oxen roasted as can be eaten,” he said, and the words jarred upon her. She looked in the pale, impassive face, and would fain have seen some lingering softness there.
He was thinking, Heaven help him! how different it would have been had the face he loved been near him on this day, when he saw how popular and well-loved he was. Then he took himself fiercely to task for the thoughts.
“Let me remember I have a wife who loves me dearly,” he said to himself, “and let me not forget the woman who ruined my life for her own amusement will soon have, or perhaps has, a husband of her own.”
So he went through the duties of the day with ease and dignity. He made a most cordial and genial speech to his tenants, inviting them all to partake of the lavish hospitality prepared for them. He took his beautiful young wife by the hand, and spoke a few words in her praise that caused cheers to rise to the very heavens. He spoke of the work he hoped to do among them—of the life he hoped to spend—of the brightness of his future, and in his heart he hated the sun for shining to mock him, and the flowers for blooming so fair.
Had any one present said that that man’s heart was broken by an unhappy love, who would have believed it? Did ever lot seem so fair?
And as the well-satisfied tenants left they declared one and all that Sir Ronald must be perfectly happy. Those who had troubles of their own—the sorrowful and unhappy, whom many privations had crushed—wondered that lots in life were so unequal, and envied this man, young, rich, handsome, and beloved, while he would have changed places with the poorest, lowliest there to have known only for one hour such peace of mind as the happy enjoy.