“God bless and keep you, my child!” he said, tremulously, as he kissed her. “Trafford, take care of my daughter!”
For a moment Esmeralda’s eyes grew moist, then they grew dry and hot again. Trafford led her to the carriage. The guests thronged behind, slippers and rice were thrown, the horses pranced, one, struck by one of Ffoulkes’ slippers, reared; there was a plunge, a cry of “Stand back; out of the way there!” addressed by the coachman to the crowd, and the Marquis and Marchioness of Trafford had started upon their honey-moon.
“And they were married and lived happy ever afterward!” murmured Lord Selvaine, as he watched the carriage dash down the square.
Trafford waved his hand while the house was still in sight, then carefully and gently brushed the rice from Esmeralda’s clothes.
“It is fortunate that it is not the fashion to throw brickbats after the newly married,” he said.
Esmeralda did not respond. She leaned back in her corner—as far from him as possible—and looked straight before her. She was still pale, and there was a vacant, absent look in her eyes. Lady Ada’s—Trafford’s—words were still ringing in her ears like a knell. She was asking herself what she should do. At one moment she felt as if she must cry and sob aloud, or feel her heart break; but she fought against her tears.
Esmeralda, the pride of Three Star Camp, had not lost all the spirit of which “the boys” had always been so proud; and that spirit was slowly rising within her now.
She was only a girl—just a girl—as Lady Wyndover had said—but she was enough of a woman to feel that she had been cruelly wronged and deceived. She had been bought and sold. The man beside her—her husband—this great nobleman had led her to believe that he loved her, but had really married her for her money!
In Three Star, conduct of the kind of which he had been guilty would have been promptly punished with the rope or the bullet. The blood burned in her veins as she thought of it, as she realized that she was tied and bound, a prisoner and helpless in his power. And yet, while the passion of indignation and resentment throbbed through her, there was an aching sense of loss in every nerve that was almost greater than her anger and humiliation.
She had loved him—loved him! Her heart had thrilled whenever he came near her. She had loved him so dearly, so truly, that she would have laid down her life for him. Why, if he had come to her and told her that it was her money and not herself he wanted, she would have given him every penny and gone back to Three Star and her old poverty without a murmur! Oh, why could he not have done so!