Jess looked helplessly at her false friend.
“If the wedding must take place, I—I am ready!” she answered, in a low voice, which threatened to break into sobs ere she finished the sentence.
“Come along, then, my dear,” returned Queenie, ignoring the first part of the remark. “Your bridegroom-to-be is most impatient; I can hear him pacing up and down the drawing-room.”
Jess allowed Queenie to wrap the long fur cloak about her, and lead her down to the corridor below.
“Do not let him come near me, or touch my hand, or I shall surely faint!” whispered Jess, hoarsely, as she shrank behind Queenie.
The latter bit her lips fiercely, to keep back the sneering retort that sprang to them. She concluded, however, that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would not do to seem to go against her, lest Jess should refuse to allow the marriage to take place at all, and thus upset all of their well-laid plans and her own hope of getting a good slice of the Dinsmore inheritance.
Low as Jess had uttered the words, Raymond Challoner’s quick ear had caught the words distinctly, and he crushed back an imprecation most fierce behind his white teeth.
“Ye gods! how the girl detests me!” he thought; “and by the Eternal, I’ll give her good cause to do so before I am through with her. She is expecting me to rush up and embrace her, while I feel more like making her ears tingle with a thorough boxing. I have no patience whatever with that kind of a girl—they arouse all the hatred and antagonism in my nature. When we turn from the altar, I will show her who is lord and master, confound her!”
But the suave, graceful manner in which he came forward, with his inimitable bow and smile, gave no warning of what was passing in his treacherous heart.
“Jess,” he murmured, making not the slightest attempt to offer her a caress, but simply offering her his arm, “this is the happiest day of my life. Come, the carriage is in waiting.”