But ever since, at the priest’s command, he had offered her the bridegroom’s kiss, she had shrunk from him in loathing.
Was it possible after all, that the mind of his beloved was unbalanced? That her reason was deranged, and had been so at the time she had made her strange marriage proposal to him? Had he himself been culpably hasty, even criminally reckless, in his acceptance of her offered hand? Had he unconsciously taken advantage of a poor child’s lunacy to make her his wife?
Indeed, the present aspect of affairs looked as if this must be the case. And if so, what earthly amends could he make her? How atone for the deep wrong he had done her?
These were terrible questions, that he could in no way answer.
While they still tortured his soul, the carriage drew up before the hotel, and the coachman left his seat on the box and came down and opened the door.
Gloria’s face was still tucked down out of sight in the corner of the carriage.
“Come, lady, we have arrived,” the young bridegroom whispered, in a gentle and deprecating tone.
She pulled her veil down closer over her face, doubling it so that not a feature could be seen, and then allowed him to take her hand and assist her from the carriage.
David Lindsay, in his distress, forgot to pay the hackman and discharge the hack. But that functionary jogged the memory of his employer and received his own dues.
Then young Lindsay led his companion into the house and up to the ladies’ parlor, when she left his arm and hurried away by herself to a corner, where she sat down in a large chair and hid her head in its back cushions.