There, in the middle of the blue-hung room, in her wedding-dress, with her bandaged eyes, and her bridal bouquet on the table, stood Jessica. Twilight was near, but even so, all the shutters were drawn save one, through which a last glow of refracted sunlight sifted to fall upon his face. Her hands were clasped before her, he could hear her breathing—the full hurried respiration of expectancy.
Then, while his hand closed the door behind him, a thing unexpected, anomalous, happened—a thing that took him as utterly by surprise as if the solid floor had yawned before him. Slim fingers tore away the broad encircling bandage. She started forward. Her arms were flung about his neck.
"Hugh!... Hugh!" she cried. "My husband!"
The paleness was stricken suddenly from Harry's face. An odd, dazed color—a flush of mortification, of self-reproach, flooded it from chin to brow. Despite himself, he had felt his lips molding to an answering kiss beneath her own. He drew a gasping breath, his hand nervously caught the bandage, replaced it over the eyes, and tied it tightly, putting down her protesting hands.
"Oh, Hugh," she pleaded, "not for a moment—not when I am so happy! Your face is what I dreamed it must be! Why did you make me wait so long? And I can see, Hugh! I can really see! Let it stay off, just for one little moment more!"
He held her hands by force. "Jessica—wait!" he said in a broken whisper. "You must not take it off again—not now!"
An incredible confusion enveloped him—his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Not only had the painful contretemps nonplussed and dismayed him; not only had it heightened and horrified the realization of what she must presently be told. It had laid a careless hand upon his own secret, touching it with an almost vulgar mockery. It had overthrown in an instant the barricades he had been piling. The pressure of those lips on his had sent coursing to the furthest recesses of his nature a great wave which dikes nor locks might ever again forbid.
Her look, leaping to his face, had not noted the ministerial dress, nor in the ecstasy of the moment did she catch the agitation in his voice; or if she did, she attributed it to a feeling like her own. She was laughing happily, while he stood, trembling slightly, holding himself with an effort.
"What a dear goose you are!" she said. "The light didn't hurt them—indeed, indeed! Only to think, Hugh! Your wife will have her sight! Do go and tell your father! He will be waiting to know!"