"I, Basil, take thee, Barribel——" he began formally.
"I forbid this marriage. It mustn't go on," said a voice at the door. It sounded like the voice of my knight: but everything was so dream-like and unreal that I thought the voice was part of the unreality. It could not be his.
But it was. He came forward, covered with dust from head to foot, as if he had been driving far and fast.
"Barribel MacDonald is already my wife," he said.
He took my hand away from Basil, who was so astounded that for an instant he did not resist. But in another second a flood of rage seemed to sweep over him, giving him strength and presence of mind.
"That's not true, and you know it!" he exclaimed, while Mrs. West stood still as a statue, looking suddenly years older than before. "Barrie, come to me."
But my knight would not let me go. He grasped my hand so tightly that it hurt. I felt as if my fingers would break in his, and for just that moment I was deliriously happy, until I remembered, with a sharp pain like an icicle in my heart, that he loved Mrs. West.
"It is true," he said. "We went through the marriage ceremony here, three weeks ago, she and I, as this man will tell you. I am a Scot, and I claim her as my wife by the law of Scotland, unless she will swear to me now, before God, that she loves you and wants you for her husband. If she can swear that, I will take steps to release her. What do you say, Barrie?"
"I—I like Basil very much," I stammered. "I was willing—I am willing—to marry him."
"I didn't ask if you liked, but if you loved, him. Do you?"