"Scared?" questioned Natalie.
"Riding like that."
"Like that! I wished the horse had wings."
"You'll have 'em if you don't take care, then——"
"Then I'll fly away." The intensity of her utterance made Tabitha stare. Natalie laughed aloud, and left her still staring.
Alone in her room, she paced slowly back and forth, struggling with her pride, crushing a forbidden and rejected love. So she regarded it. With a wrung heart, Mark had respected her decision, and in the depths of her soul she blamed him, scorning the puny passion so easily beaten. "Go to Paula," she had written, while "Come to me," her heart had cried so loudly that, except he were deaf, he might have heard.
When she had written her letter to Mark she had accomplished a bitter task only after a long and desperate struggle. She loved Leonard; she had said this to herself over and over again, and it was true; and to him she had given her troth freely, fully believing that for him there would be happiness and for her content. But the lowest depths of her soul had been stirred by the letter from Mark. There were chambers there that Leonard had not entered, could never enter, and into which she herself dared not look.
Self-sacrifice is to women alluring. That which she had made had been made, at least she so believed, with honest intention, yet, since now it was irrevocable, it was too hideous to contemplate. She would call him back, and on her knees——
Shameful thought! She was betrothed to a man she loved. Had she not admitted it? Not to him only, but shyly this very morning to the fond old woman to whom she owed so much, whose last days by that very admission were brightened by a glorious sunshine never before known in a long and gloomy life. Could she now, even if in her own eyes she could fall so low—could she fall so low in the eyes of these women by whom she was surrounded? In her aunt's eyes and Tabitha's? In Paula's, to whom, in loving loyalty, she had herself confided the secret? In those of Mrs. Joe, who had so carefully warned her from this preserve? No—to that depth she could not descend, not even to bask in the cold and passionless love of Mark.
The engagement was received with universal favor. It could hardly be otherwise, since all peculiarly interested were of that sex which dearly loves to contemplate a captive man, the only male (Leonard, of course, excepted) being Mark, whose attitude, being unsuspected, was ignored. And the bridegroom was the hero of all these women: the heir of Miss Claghorn; the one of the family to whom Tabitha was willing to ascribe all the virtues; regarded with affectionate esteem by Mrs. Joe, and, as to all except his denominational qualities, worshipped by Paula. As to the question of yoking believer and unbeliever, it had certainly occurred to all the devotees of the young theologian, but, aside from the certainty that truth must find its triumph in the union, the more pressing question of clothes for the approaching wedding left but little room in pious but feminine minds for other considerations. Events had so fallen in with Leonard's wishes that an early marriage was deemed advisable in Natalie's interest. Mr. Ellis Winter had encountered difficulty with regard to certain property in France belonging to her, and her presence in Paris was essential; and it was no less desirable that while there she be under the protection of a husband. For, aside from other considerations, marriage was the easiest solution of the complications which had arisen out of the guardianship of the Marquise, which guardianship would legally terminate with Natalie's marriage. And these things opened the way for Mark's return to Stormpoint.