“How foolish of you, Dick. Why, I burned the license.”
“I know you did, Anna; but—I wish you would keep as far as possible from the side of Alick Lyon when he stands before a minister who holds a prayer-book in his hands open at the marriage service!”
“Be at ease, Dick, I shall place Alick’s wife between me and him. I shall consider her an insurmountable obstacle.”
“Hush, Anna, we must not talk more! we are too near them,” whispered Dick, in a very low tone as they came up very close behind the foremost couple.
And what were Drusilla’s feelings when she found herself again by her Alick’s side, her hand drawn closely within his protecting arm, and pressed frequently against his beating heart—knowing, as she did, that he was then meditating against her the deepest wrong man could inflict upon woman—feeling, as she did, that every caress bestowed upon her, in his ignorance of her identity, was intended for another; and going, as she was, to take from him, by a holy stratagem, those sacred rights of which he had so cruelly deprived her; and to brave and bear his terrible anger when that stratagem should be discovered, as it must be when the rites should be over—what were her feelings?
A great medical philosopher has written that “Nature is before art with her anesthetics.”
And Drusilla’s present state was an illustration of this. In the supreme crisis of her fate she scarcely realized her position. She was like one partially overcome by ether or chloroform; her head was ringing, her senses whirling, her reason tottering; she went on as a somnambulist, half conscious of her state, but unable to awake. It may be doubtful whether she would now have retreated if she could; but it is quite certain that she could not have done so even if she would. She was under a potent spell that hurried her forward with all the irresistible force of destiny.
The drawing-room doors were thrown open. The little bridal procession passed in.
The room, thanks to Dick, was very dimly lighted.
Upon the rug, with his back to the fire, and facing the advancing party, stood the officiating clergyman in his surplice.