He turned, crossed the garden, opened the wall-gate and came out by the niched shrine upon the shore path which semi-circled the monastery.
A gust of self-raillery shook him. Inside, the friars were gravely drinking a health to the bride, in cups kept burnished for the purpose, made of pure gold. He, though only a guest, should be among them in robe and girdle to cheer these nuptials! He had drunk many a bumper in such costume in the old Newstead days, with Sheridan and Tom Moore!
The bitter laugh died on his lips. Why should he remember so well? In such a gabardine he had drunk the toast Annabel had heard, the night he had asked her to marry him. And he had drunk it from a death’s-head! The emblem, truly enough, had typified the tragedy marriage was to be to him!
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the mossed stone, as if its coolness might allay the fever that held him. Would marriage have meant such for him if the words that had bound him to Annabel had linked him to a heart like Teresa’s, of fire and snow, of simple faith, of tenderness and charity? If he could have loved one like her!
He had no knowledge of how long he stood there. He was recalled by a voice from the path behind him—between him and the gate, his only way of escape—a voice that held him spellbound.
“Father, give me your blessing!”
With an overmastering sense of the fatality that had beckoned her to the lagoon path at just this moment to mistake him for one of the padres, he turned slowly. She was kneeling, the exquisite fabric of her dress sweeping the moist shingle, her eyes on the ground, awaiting the sign.
He reached out his hand with a hoarse cry:
“Not that! Teresa! It is I—I—who should kneel to you!”
The words broke from him at sight of her bent face, not as a bride’s should be, but weary and listless. Underneath the cry was a quick thrill of triumph. Though she was that day another man’s wife, yet she had suffered! But the thrill died in a pang of reproach. If she did care, better the harshest thought of him now!