The wedding day, and for once in a way a crisp, bright, hearty, frosty time—cold but inspiriting; and at ten o’clock, pale and trembling, but nerved for her trial, May Richards stood suffering Keziah to give the finishing touches to her dress before starting for the church. There was to be no form; May had stipulated for that. The wedding was to be at an old City church hard by, and in place of meeting her there Tom Brough had arrived, and was in the dining-room talking to old Richards bound to an easy-chair with gout, and too ill to think of going to the church.
As May entered at last, led in by Keziah, defiant and snorting, Tom Brough, active as a young man, hurried to meet the trembling girl, caught her in his arms, and kissed her fondly, heedless of the sigh she gave.
“Don’t look like that, my darling,” he whispered. “I’m going to make you happy as the day is long.”
May’s only reply was a look so full of misery and despair, that Keziah put her apron to her eyes and ran out of the room.
For a moment there was a shade as of uneasiness crossed old Richards’ face—it might have been a twinge of gout—but it passed on the instant.
“Don’t look like that, May!” he exclaimed angrily. “If you don’t know what is for your good you must be taught. Now, Brough, time’s going—get it over, man. She’ll be happier as soon as you have her away.”
“Yes, yes,” said Tom Brough tenderly. “Come May, my child, have you not one look for me?”
May placed her hands in his, and looked up in his face with the faintest dawning of a smile upon her lip, and this time she did not shrink back when he kissed her forehead, but hung upon his arm as if resigned to her fate; the sound of wheels was heard in the narrow street; the friends ready to accompany them were summoned from the room below—two old friends of Mr Brough’s, for old Richards had, as he often boasted, no friends; May was led out, the door was heard to close, wheels rattled away, and then, for a wonder, there fell a dead silence upon Walbrook, one which seemed to affect old Richards, even as he sat there looking haggard and drawn of feature, thinking of the past, and of the day he wed his own wife long before gold had become his care—almost his god. For the first time remorse had seized upon him, and it wanted not the words of Keziah Bay, who now entered the room, for reproach to be heaped upon his head.
But Keziah’s words were not fierce now, only the words of sorrow; and at last she sank down sobbing before him, and said:
“O, Master Richards—Master Richards—what have you done?”