"WEDDING-BELLS."
When Mallow returned to Casterwell he found the village keeping high holiday in honour of Olive's marriage. The streets and houses were gay with flowers and flags. Under the arches of green boughs, festooned with many coloured blossoms, the people moved about gazing--not without admiration, it must be confessed--at their own handiwork. The same profuse hospitality, which had distinguished the coming-of-age of the Lady of the Manor, was repeated on a still larger scale. The bells of St. Augustine's were clamorous in the old tower; the sleepy old churchyard was for the nonce alive with voices, and the sun, in sympathetic mood at so brave a sight, was shining with all his splendour. But the idol does not ever rejoice with the worshippers, and she was the most miserable girl in the whole village.
Laurence was perhaps scarcely less so. He had not advised Aldean of his return, but had come from Reading in the hired fly. Dusty and battered, it contrasted discordantly with the spruceness and gaiety of the street; and Mallow, seated far back in it, his cap drawn over his eyes, winced more than once as the full meaning of it all forced itself upon him.
"I wonder, does she feel as wretched as I do," he thought, bitterly. "I suppose she does. My poor Iphigenia! my poor girl! Her father has much to answer for."
Lord Aldean received his friend in unbounded astonishment. He had not expected that Mallow would return on this of all days, and he fell to the conclusion that he must have been successful in his search, and have returned to stop the marriage at the eleventh hour. Yet Mallow certainly did not look as if he had succeeded. His dress was careless and his face was haggard; and he formed a striking contrast to Aldean in the smartness of conventional wedding-going garments. Indeed, as he arrived, Jim was on the point of leaving for the church. He signalled to his coachman to wait, and drew Mallow into the library.
"Well," he said, breathlessly, "what have you done?"
"Nothing; absolutely nothing," replied Mallow, throwing himself into a chair with a weary sigh.
"I was afraid your journey would turn out a wild goose-chase," said Aldean, with a shrug. "So Carson is the right man after all?"
"I have found nothing to prove that he is not."
"What about the sandal-wood perfume?"