Miss Peyton now led them to the room where Lawton had left Sarah and Colonel Wellmere, and awaited the nuptials.
Wellmere, offering Sarah his hand, led her before the divine, and the ceremony began. The first words of this imposing office produced a dead stillness in the apartment; and the minister of God was about to proceed when a figure, gliding into the midst of the party, at once put a stop to the ceremony. It was the peddler. His look was bitter and ironical,[94] while a finger raised towards the divine seemed to forbid the ceremony to go any further.
“Can Colonel Wellmere waste the precious moments here, when his wife has crossed the ocean to meet him? The nights are long, and the moon bright; a few hours will take him to the city.”
Aghast at the suddenness of his extraordinary address, Wellmere for a moment lost the command of his faculties. To Sarah, the countenance of Birch, expressive as it was, produced no terror; but the instant she recovered from the surprise of his interruption, she turned her anxious gaze on the features of the man to whom she had pledged her troth. They afforded the most terrible confirmation of all that the peddler affirmed; the room whirled round, and she fell lifeless into the arms of her aunt.
The confusion enabled the peddler to retreat with a rapidity that would baffle pursuit, had any been attempted, and Wellmere stood with every eye fixed on him, in ominous silence.
“’Tis false—’tis false as hell!” he cried, striking his forehead. “I have ever denied her claim; nor will the laws of my country compel me to acknowledge it.”
“But what will conscience and the laws of God do?” asked Lawton.
“’Tis well, sir,” said Wellmere, haughtily, and retreating towards the door, “my situation protects you now; but a time may come—”
He had reached the entry, when a slight tap on his shoulder caused him to turn his head; it was Captain Lawton, who, with a smile of peculiar meaning, beckoned him to follow. They reached the stables before the trooper spoke, when he cried aloud:
“Bring out Roanoke!”