"Yes, I understand now," she said, with a quivering lip, and the great tears rolling down her cheeks. "There is money for me somewhere, but, oh, I wish it had come in father's life-time. We were so poor then; but," she added, as a bright smile broke over her face, "I am glad for you, Grey, that I shall not be a penniless bride."
Did she not then appreciate the position, or see the gulf which her relationship to the dead man had built between them? If not, he must tell her, and rising again to his feet, and standing over her, Grey began with a choking voice:
"Bessie, you do not seem even to suspect that, in the eyes of the world, the fact that you are Joel Rogers' grand-niece ought to separate you from me. Don't you know that the blood of your kinsman is on my grandfather's hands, and does that make no difference with you?"
"Difference!" she repeated. "No, why should it? Oh, Grey, you are not going to give me up because of that? I was not to blame;" and in Bessie's voice there was such a pleading pathos, that when she stretched her hands toward him, Grey took her in his arms, feeling that all his doubts and fears were removed, and that Bessie might be his in spite of everything.
For a long time they talked together of the course to be pursued, deciding finally that the matter should be kept to themselves until Grey and Bessie were married, and with Hannah had been to Wales and proved the validity of Bessie's claim to the effects of Joel Rogers.
There was no longer any talk of waiting until Christmas Eve, for the marriage was to take place as soon as possible, and when Grey took Bessie home to Miss McPherson he startled that good woman with the announcement that he was to be married the last week in November and sail at once for Europe, taking his Aunt Hannah with him.
CHAPTER XV.
WEDDING BELLS.
They rang first for Lord Hardy and Augusta Browne, who had intended to be married in October, but whose wedding was deferred until the second week in November, because, as Mrs. Rossiter-Browne expressed it, "Gusty's bridal trouses could not arrive in time from Paris." Everything pertaining to the young lady's wardrobe was ordered either from London or Paris, and could Mrs. Browne have done it she would have bought the Arch of Triumph, and, transporting it to Allington, would have set it up in front of her house and illuminated it for the occasion. She should never have another daughter marry an Irish lord, she said, and she meant "to make a splurge and astonish the natives," and she did.