“I shall only hope, then,” said he, “that no new restraint may be imposed upon you to prevent your coming. And now I will go—to meet you to-morrow.”
He seized her hand in his icy grasp, wrung it convulsively, and bowing with his pallid face, walked quickly away.
There was a weight on Edith's heart; but in spite of this, Dudleigh's last look, his agitated manner, and his deep love filled her with pity, and made her anxious to carry out her act of self-sacrifice for so dear and so true a friend.
CHAPTER XXVIII. — A MARRIAGE IN THE DARK.
The chapel referred to was a sombre edifice over the graves of the Daltons. Beneath it were the vaults where reposed the remains of Edith's ancestors. The chapel was used for the celebration of burial rites. It was in this place that the marriage was to take place. Edith, in her gloom, thought the place an appropriate one. Let the marriage be there, she thought—in that place where never anything but burials has been known before. Could she have changed the one service into the other, she would have done so.
And yet she would not go back, for it was the least of two evils. The other alternative was captivity under the iron hand of Wiggins—Wiggins the adventurer, the forger, the betrayer of her father, whose power over herself was a perpetual insult to that father's memory—a thing intolerable, a thing of horror. Why should she not give herself to the man who loved her, even if her own love was wanting, when such an act would free her from so accursed a tyranny?
{Illustration: “SHE SAW THROUGH THE GLOOM A FIGURE"}
Agitated and excited, she lingered through the hours of the day after parting with Dudleigh. Night came, but brought no rest; and the following day dawned, and the irrevocable hour drew nigh. That day was one filled with strange fears, chief among which was the thought that Wiggins might discover all, or suspect it, and arrest her flight. But time passed, and evening came, and Wiggins had done nothing.