“Don’t tremble so, my dear! It is only the servants pressing close to the door to steal a look at the wedding. They would not let any visitors in. And even if they should make such a mistake, it would be no great matter!”
“Hush!” she answered, in the lowest murmur. “Do not talk! Attend to the ceremony.”
Uninterrupted by the inaudible whisper between husband and wife, the ceremony was proceeding. And no one moved or spoke, until the minister, lifting his eyes from the book in his hands, inquired gravely:
“‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’”
“‘I do,’” answered Abel Force, stepping forward, taking his daughter’s hand with tender solemnity and placing it in that of Leonidas, who bowed with deep reverence as he received it.
Then Abel Force retreated to the side of his pale and agitated wife, whispered with a smile:
“Just what your father did for me, my love! Just what Leonidas may have to do for Odalite’s daughters some twenty years hence! The order of nature, dear wife! And we must smile and not cry over it.”
But Elfrida Force was not grieving over the marriage of her daughter. There was nothing in that marriage to give her pain; everything to give her satisfaction. Odalite was marrying no stranger, but Leonidas, who had been brought up in her home, who loved her, and was beloved by her as an only son. And Odalite was not to be taken away from her, but was to live on the adjoining plantation to their own, where, if they pleased, mother and daughter might meet every day. Altogether a most perfectly satisfactory marriage, in which her soul would have delighted but for a nameless dread of approaching evil—a dread which she could neither comprehend nor conquer—a dread of impeding ill which was fast growing into terror of an immediate death blow.
“Oh!” she breathed. “When it is entirely over—‘finished, done and sealed’—and they are off at sea, then, and then only, shall I be able to breathe freely.”
Meanwhile the solemn rites went on to the conclusion, and once more Odalite, with her hand safely clasped in that of her bridegroom, heard spoken over them the awful warning: “Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”