“Joan, Joan,” cried Mrs. Bird, “is everything right? You don’t look as you ought to not a bit happy.”
“Quite right, thank you,” she answered, with an unmoved countenance. “I have been shut up for so long that the idea of going out upsets me a little, that is all.”
Then Mrs. Bird collapsed and sat silent, but Joan, moving to the window, looked down the street. The sight was not an inspiriting one, for it was a wet and miserable afternoon even for London in November, and the rain trickled ceaselessly down the dirty window-panes. Presently through the mist Joan saw a four-wheeled cab advancing towards the house.
“Come,” she said, “here it is.” And she put on a heavy cloak over her other wrappings.
At the door she paused for a moment, as though her resolution failed her; then passed downstairs with a steady step. Mr. Rock was already in the passage inquiring for her from Maria.
“Here I am,” she said; “let us go at once. I am afraid of catching cold if I stand about.”
Apparently Samuel was too much taken aback to make any answer, and in another minute they were all three in the cab driving towards the nearest registry.
“I managed it all right, Joan,” he said, bending forward and raising his voice to make himself heard above the rattling of the crazy cab. “I was only just in time, though, for I had to give forty-eight hours’ clear notice at the registry, and to make all sorts of affidavits about your age, and as to your having been resident in the parish for more than fifteen days.”
Joan received this information in silence, and nothing more was said until they arrived at the office.
From that moment till the end of the ceremony, so far as her immediate surroundings were concerned, Joan’s mind was very much of a blank. She remembered, indeed, standing before a pleasant-looking gentleman with gold spectacles and a bald head, who asked her certain questions which she answered. She remembered also that Samuel put a ring upon her finger, for she noticed how his long white hands shook as he did so, and their hateful touch for a few instants stirred her from her lethargy. Then there arose in her mind a vision of herself standing on a golden summer afternoon by the ruins of an ancient church, and of one who spoke to her, and whom she must never see again. The vision passed, and she signed something. While her pen was yet upon the paper, she heard Mrs. Bird exclaim, in a shrill, excited voice,—