"Nonsense!"
"I assure you I'm not joking. Those long hideous veils and white shroud-like dresses to me always symbolize Death. The pallor of the bride's face perhaps adds to my delusion—but it's painfully real. I never go to a church wedding. The apparition haunts me for days."
Bivens smiled wanly.
"But what will you do when your time comes, old man? You can't run away then."
"That's just what I will do—run away and take my girl with me. We'll elope and be married in street clothes. It's more human."
While he spoke, Stuart's eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really happen. It had happened again and again. The miracle might happen to him.
"But I say, Jim, that's all rot. I want you to stand by me. I've always taken as much of your friendship as you would give and been grateful for it. I don't make new friends easily. I want you, and you've just got to do it."
Stuart shook his head and firmly set his jaws. A grim temptation flashed through his imagination. If he should accept, it might be the one thing which would prevent Nan's betrayal of her love at the altar. Might he not by the power of his personality, the hypnotic force of his yearning passion and will, stop the ceremony? In the moment of deathlike silence which should follow the minister's words asking if there were any cause known why these two should not be made one, might not a single movement of his body at that moment, a groan of pain, a sob, a cry of agony in a supreme act of his will, cause the white figure to reel and fall at his feet? It was possible.
But it would be too cheap. It would be a worthless victory, a victory of the flesh without the spirit—and he refused to take the body without the soul.
With a frown he turned to Bivens: