Her heart beat violently, and a strange swimming sensation made blurred and indistinct the moonlit scene; but when, approaching more nearly to the window-pane, she gazed anxiously out, the dark figure had disappeared; there was nothing visible but the shadows cast by tree and shrub, and, hastily casting aside her fears, she smiled, telling herself that it was but fancy.
What could any one want there at that time of the night? Burglars? Absurd, they would not openly show themselves while there were lights about the house, and even then it was not likely that they would cross the lawn. If not a creation of her brain, it was most probably one of Sir Murray Gernon’s keepers out upon his rounds, and taking a short cut to some copse or preserve.
But for all that, Ada Lee sat long watching from her window. The painful beating of her heart was still there, and a cloud of fancies kept flitting through her brain. Strange, wild fancies they were, such as she could not have explained; but, in spite of her efforts, troublous enough to make the tears flow silently from her eyes as she recalled, she knew not why, the heart-aches of the past, and the battle she had had with self to hide from every eye the suffering she had endured.
Again and again, as she rose from her seat by the window and paced up and down the room, she tried to drive away these troubled thoughts, but they were too strong for her, and at last, raging against her weakness the while, she burst into a passionate flood of tears—passionate as any shed by her friend that night, as she threw herself, sobbing, by the bedside.
“There! now I hope you’ll be better!” she exclaimed, apostrophising herself in a half-sad, half-bantering spirit. “What we poor weak women would do without a good cry now and then, I’m sure I don’t know. Well, it’s better to have it now than to break down to-morrow at the altar. But a nice body I am to be preaching to poor little Marion about being weak and childish, for there really is a something at these times that is too much for our poor little weak spirits. I wonder whether men are nervous, or whether they feel it at all!”
Ada Lee’s words were light, and she knew that she was trying to deceive herself as she lay down to rest with a smile upon her lip; but when, towards dawn, sleep did come, it was to oppress her with wild and confused dreams, from one of which she awoke, trembling as if from some great horror, but trying vainly to recall the vision. It was of trouble and danger, but she knew no more; and it was with sleep effectually banished from her pillow that she lay at last, waiting for the coming of that eventful day.
The Happy Pair.
People came from miles round to see that wedding, for the morning was bright and genial, and there were to be grand doings up at the castle as soon as the happy pair had taken their departure. It was not often that a wedding took place at Merland church, and this was to be no ordinary affair. Hours before the time appointed the people from the village and outlying farms began to assemble. The school children, flower-laden and excited, had rehearsed their part of throwing flowers in the bride’s path, and had picked them up again; the ringers were having a preliminary “qu-a-a-art” of the very bad ale sold at the village inn preparatory to looking over the ropes of the three bells, all that Merland tower could boast. Sir Murray Gernon’s tenants, and the farmers’ daughters, were in an acute state of excitement, and dresses that had been in preparation for days past were being carefully fitted on.
“There could not have been a brighter and happier morning for you, my darling,” exclaimed Marion’s mother, as she kissed her affectionately, holding her with the clinging fondness of one about to lose a household treasure; proud of the position her child was to take, but, now that it had come to the time, tearful and hard pressed to hide her pain.