“Can a lifetime of devotion and love suffice to prove my gratitude for your courage and tenderness, my Ginevra?” said Luigi.
At these words, said with tears of joy, the bride forgot her sufferings; for she had indeed suffered in presenting herself before the public to obtain a happiness her parents refused to sanction.
“Why should others come between us?” she said with an artlessness of feeling that delighted Luigi.
A sense of accomplished happiness now made the step of the young pair lighter; they saw neither heaven, nor earth, nor houses; they flew, as it were, on wings to the church. When they reached a dark little chapel in one corner of the building, and stood before a plain undecorated altar, an old priest married them. There, as in the mayor’s office, two other marriages were taking place, still pursuing them with pomp. The church, filled with friends and relations, echoed with the roll of carriages, and the hum of beadles, sextons, and priests. Altars were resplendent with sacramental luxury; the wreaths of orange-flowers that crowned the figures of the Virgin were fresh. Flowers, incense, gleaming tapers, velvet cushions embroidered with gold, were everywhere. When the time came to hold above the heads of Luigi and Ginevra the symbol of eternal union,—that yoke of satin, white, soft, brilliant, light for some, lead for most,—the priest looked about him in vain for the acolytes whose place it was to perform that joyous function. Two of the witnesses fulfilled it for them. The priest addressed a hasty homily to the pair on the perils of life, on the duties they must, some day, inculcate upon their children,—throwing in, at this point, an indirect reproach to Ginevra on the absence of her parents; then, after uniting them before God, as the mayor had united them before the law, he left the now married couple.
“God bless them!” said Vergniaud, the sergeant, to the mason, when they reached the church porch. “No two creatures were ever more fitted for one another. The parents of the girl are foolish. I don’t know a braver soldier than Colonel Luigi. If the whole army had behaved like him, ‘l’autre’ would be here still.”
This blessing of the old soldier, the only one bestowed upon their marriage-day, shed a balm on Ginevra’s heart.
They parted with hearty shakings of hand; Luigi thanked his landlord.
“Adieu, ‘mon brave,’” he said to the sergeant. “I thank you.”
“I am now and ever at your service, colonel,—soul, body, horses, and carriages; all that is mine is yours.”
“How he loves you!” said Ginevra.