"Celeste!" he whispered, hoarsely, his face almost in her hair. "I worship you! I adore you!"
He crushed her in his arms and she smiled through her tears.
CHAPTER XVII.
AT SEA.
Even at that moment he thought of the wrong he was doing Justine, forgetting that he was blasting the life of the other one. And again, when he asked Celeste to be his wife, he thought of the cruel deception he was practicing upon Justine. Not till afterwards did he fully realize that he had deceived Celeste a thousand fold more grossly than Justine—for Justine was his lawful wife, Celeste his victim.
And yet that night he gained her promise to be his wife, calmly, remorselessly leading her to the sacrifice of love. It was enough for the moment that he loved her and that she loved him. As he hurried homeward with her kisses tingling on his lips, he whispered joyously to himself that he loved them both and that he could live for them both—worshiping one no more than the other. And he slept that night with a smile of happiness on his lips.
The day for the wedding was set, and it was not until then that his eyes were opened to the wrong he was doing Celeste. She could not be his wife. All the marriage vows in the land could not bind her to him in law. For the first time he realized that reality. But to his rescue came the assurance that he loved her and that she was his in the holy sight of God, if not in the wretched laws of man. He saw the wrong of it all, but he made his own law and he made his wrong a right. As he made his arrangements for the marriage he was afraid that something like conscience might overthrow him before his desires could be realized.
Blissfully ignorant and deeply in love, she filled him with joy by naming a day just one month from that on which he told her that he loved her. Acceding again to his wishes, for his eager will, urged on by fear, carried her with it, she agreed to a very quiet wedding.
The power of his love—the love which shrank and trembled with the fear that it might be thwarted—carried everything before it, sweeping honor and dishonor into a heap which he called the mountain of happiness, and he resolved that it should be strong and enduring.