Billy needed no second bidding, but catching up his cap ran down the stairs and out into the porch, just as up the step a young man came hurriedly, the horse he had hitched to a tree smoking from exercise and himself looking eager and excited.
"Hello, boy," he cried, grasping the collar of Bill's roundabout and holding him fast, "who's in the church?"
"Darn yer, old Jim Sykes, you let me be, or I'll—" the boy began, but when he saw his captor was not Jim Sykes, but a tall, fine-looking man, wearing a soldier's uniform, he changed his tone, and standing still, answered civilly: "I thought you was Jim Sykes, the biggest bully in town, who is allus hectorin' us boys. Nobody is there but she—Miss Lennox—up where the organ is," and having given the desired information, Bill ran off, wondering first if it wasn't Miss Helen's beau, and wondering next, in case she should some time get married in church, if he wouldn't fee the organ boy as well as the sexton. "He orto," Bill soliloquized, "for I've about blowed my gizzard out sometimes, when she and Mrs. Cameron sings the 'Te Deum.'"
Meanwhile Mark Ray, who had driven first to the farmhouse in quest of Helen, entered the church, glancing in upon the festooned walls, and then as he heard a sound in the loft, stealing noiselessly up the stairs to where Helen sat in the dim light, reading again the precious letter withheld from her so long. She had moved her stool near to the window, and her back was toward the door, so that she neither saw nor heard, nor suspected anything, until Mark, bending over her so as to see what she had in her hand, as well as the tear she had dropped upon it, clasped both his arms about her neck, and drawing her face over back, kissed her fondly, calling her his darling, and saying to her as she tried to struggle from him:
"I know I have a right to call you darling by that tear on my letter and the look upon your face. Dear Helen, we have found each other at last."
It was so unexpected that Helen could not speak, but she let her head rest on his bosom, where he had laid it, and her hot, trembling hand crept into his, so that he was answered, and for a moment he only kissed and caressed the fair girl he knew now was his own. They could not talk together there very long, for Helen must go home; but he made good use of the time he had, telling her many things, and then asking her a question which made her start away from him as she replied: "No, no, oh! no, not to-night—not so soon as that!"
"And why not, Helen?" he asked, with the manner of one who is not to be denied. "Why not to-night, so there need be no more misunderstanding? I'd rather leave you as my wife than my betrothed. Mother will like it better. I hinted it to her and she said there was room for you in her love. It will make me a better man, a better soldier, if I can say 'my wife,' as other soldiers do. You don't know what a charm there is in that word, Helen—keeping a man from sin, and if I should die I would rather you should bear my name and share in my fortune. Will you, Helen, when the ceremonies are closed, will you go up to that altar and pledge your vows to me? I cannot wait till to-morrow; my leave of absence expired to-day. I must go back to-night, but you must first be mine."
Helen was shaking as with a chill, but she made him no reply, and wrapping her cloak and furs about her, Mark led her down to the sleigh, and taking his seat beside her, drove back to the farmhouse, where the supper waited for her. Katy, to whom Mark first communicated his desire, warmly espoused his cause, and that went far toward reassuring Helen, who, for some time past had been learning to look up to Katy as to an older sister, so sober, so earnest, so womanly had Katy grown since Wilford went away.
"It is so sudden, and people will talk," Helen said, knowing while she said it how little she cared for people and smiling at Katy's reply:
"They may as well talk about you a while as me. It is not so bad when once you are used to it."