"'I want nothing but your love,' she said; 'nothing. I am not afraid of poverty.'
"The three weeks were gone. I got an exeat, and went up to London by an early train. I had directed Esperanza to meet me at the church, whose doors we had so often passed together in our evening walks, and where we had knelt side by side one Sunday evening. She was to take Martha to church with her; but not till the last moment, not till they were at the church door, was she to tell my old nurse what was going to happen, lest an idea of duty to the mother should induce her to betray the son.
"The air was crisp and bright, and the wintry landscape basked in the wintry sun between Cambridge and Stratford; but the dull greyness of our metropolitan winter wrapped me round when I left Bishopsgate Street, and there was a thin curtain of fog hanging over my beloved Bloomsbury when my hansom rattled along the sober old-world streets to the solid Georgian church. I sprang from the cab as if I had worn Mercury's sandals, told the man to wait, ran lightly up the steps, pushed back the heavy door and entered the dark temple, hushed and breathless. How solemn and cold and ghostly the church looked, how grey and pale the great cold windows. The fog seemed thicker here than in the streets outside; and the dreary fane was empty.
"I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes to eleven. I had entreated her to be at the church at least ten minutes before the hour; and I felt bitterly disappointed that she had not anticipated the appointment.
"Her last letter was three days old. Could she be ill? could any evil thing have happened? I hurried back to the church door, intending to get into my cab and drive to Ormond Street. I changed my mind before I had crossed the threshold. I might miss her on the way—drive by one street while she and Martha were walking in another. Again, there was something undignified in a bridegroom rushing off in search of his bride. My place was to wait in the church. I had seen a good many weddings in our parish church in Suffolk, and I knew that the bride was almost always late. Yet, in spite of this experience, I had expected my bride in advance of the appointed time. She had no wreath of orange-blossoms, no bridal veil to adjust, no doting mother, or sister bridesmaids to flurry and hinder her under the pretence of helping. She had no carriage to wait for. Her impatience to see me after nearly three weeks should have brought her to the church earlier than this.
"Then I remembered Martha. No doubt she was waiting for Martha. That good soul was interviewing the butcher, or adjusting her Paisley shawl, while I was fretting and fuming in the church. I had no best man to reason with my impatience and keep up my spirits. My best man was to be the parish clerk, and he had not yet appeared upon the scene. I saw a pew-opener creeping about, a pew-opener in the accustomed close black bonnet and sober apparel. Esperanza's bridesmaid! Martha would have to give her away.
"I took a turn round the church, looked at the monuments, and even stood still to read a tablet here and there, and knew no more of the inscription after I had read it than if it had been in choice Assyrian.
"I opened the heavy door and went out on the steps, and stood watching a stray cab or a stray pedestrian, dimly visible through the thickening fog. I looked at my watch every other minute, between anger and despair. It was five minutes to eleven. The curate who was to marry us passed me on the steps and went into the church, unsuspecting that I was to be the chief actor in the ceremony. I stood looking along the street, in the only direction in which my bride was to be expected, and my heart sickened as the slow minutes wore themselves out, till it was nearly a quarter-past eleven.
"I could endure this no longer. My hansom was waiting on the opposite side of the street. I lifted my finger, and signed to the driver to come over to me. There was nothing for it but to go to Great Ormond Street, and discover the cause of delay.
"Before the man could climb into his seat and cross the road, a brougham drove sharply up to the church steps—a brougham of dingy aspect, driven by a man whose livery branded him as a flyman.