Joseph was somewhere in the neighborhood, that he knew. Where exactly the Teacher was he could not say. Mary was staying at the little cottage which he could see as he sent his eyes roving round the semicircle of white houses which fringed the bay, with her aunt, Lady Susan Wells. Hampson was to be "best man." Bridesmaids there were none. It was to be the simplest of all ceremonies.
This prince of modern London was to be married to one of the greatest heiresses in England, and a member of one of the oldest families in the United Kingdom, as Colin might marry Audrey—happily, quietly, and far from the view of the world.
Whether Joseph himself would be present at the ceremony even Ducaine himself was not quite certain. That after the wedding-feast—the simple wedding-feast—they were all to meet Joseph upon the mountain-top, he was well aware. It had been arranged, and he thrilled with anticipation of some further and more wonderful revelation of the designs of the Almighty than had ever been vouchsafed to him before. But at the church—he hoped the Teacher would be present in the little village church when he and Mary were made one.
He turned to walk back to the cottage, when down the granite pier he saw that a little flaxen-haired girl was walking. In all the sleeping semicircle of the village Thomas and the little girl seemed alone to be awake.
The blue wood-smoke was rising from the chimneys of the cottages, but as yet no one was stirring in the outside air.
The little girl came tripping and laughing along the granite isthmus between the waters, and in her hand she held a folded piece of paper.
With the confiding innocence of childhood, she came straight up to the tall young man, and stretching out her tiny arm, looked into his face.
"You are Thomas, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes," he answered, "I am Thomas."
"Then this is for you, Thomas," she replied. "This letter an' all. Dadda was up in the mountain this morning, and William Rees, whateffer, met dadda, and gave him this letter, which Mr. Joseph had given him. The Teacher is staying up in the little house in the mountain-top where Lluellyn Lys used to live, and he gave this to William Rees, and William Rees gave it to dadda, and dadda told me to find you and give it to you, Thomas."