“Your will is my law, Millicent! He shall marry us.”
“But, Robert—”
“If you oppose me now in this, I shall think you have not forgiven the folly to which I have confessed. I can hardly forgive myself that meanness. You will not add to my pain.”
“Add to your pain?” she said, laying her hand once more upon his breast. “Robert, you do not know me yet.”
And so it was that Christie Bayle joined the hand of the woman he had loved to that of the man who had told her she would in future be his very own—his property, his slave.
Pretty well all Castor was present, and at the highest pitch of excitement, for a handsomer pair, they said, had never stood in the old chancel to be made one.
And they were made one. The register was signed, and then, in the midst of a murmuring buzz and rustle of garments that filled the great building like the gathering of a storm, Robert Hallam and his fair young wife moved down the aisle, towards where a man was waiting to give the signal to the ringers to begin; and the crowd had filled every corner near the door, and almost blocked the path. The sun shone out brilliantly, and the buzz and rustle grew more and more like the gathering of that storm, which burst at last as the young couple reached the porch, in a thundering cheer.
Millicent looked flushed, and there was a red spot in Hallam’s cheeks as he walked out, proud and defiant, towards where the yellow chaise from the “George,” with four post-horses, was waiting.
The coach had just come in, and the passengers were standing gazing at the novel scene.
Again the storm burst in a tremendous cheer as Hallam handed his young wife into the chaise, and then there seemed to be another nearing storm, sending its harbinger in a fashion which made firm, self-contained Robert Hallam turn pale, as a hand was laid upon his arm.