“Yes, let’s go,” Josephine said, “and pray forget that I almost asked you to marry me and you refused. I should not have done it only it is Leap-year, you know, and I have a right; but it was all in joke, of course. I didn’t mean it. Don’t think I did, Everard.”
Oh, how soft and beautiful were the eyes swimming in tears and lifted so pleadingly to Everard’s face! It was more than mortal man could do to withstand them, and Everard went down before them body and soul. His father’s bitter anger,—so sure to follow, his mother’s grief and disappointment in her son, and Rossie’s childish surprise were all forgotten, or, if remembered, weighed as nought compared with this lovely creature with the golden hair and eyes of blue, looking so sweetly and tenderly at him.
“I’ll do it, by George!” he said, and the hot blood came surging back to his face. “It will be the richest kind of a lark. Tie as tight as you please. I am more than willing.”
He was very much excited, and Josephine was trembling like a leaf. Only Dr. Matthewson was calm as he asked: “Do you really mean it, and will you stand to it?”
“Are you ever coming?” came angrily this time from the manager, who was losing all patience.
“Yes, I mean it, and will stand to it,” Everard said, and so went on to his fate.
There was a cheer, followed by a deep hush, when the curtain was withdrawn, disclosing the bridal party upon the stage, fitted up to represent a modern drawing-room, with groups of gayly-dressed people standing together, and in their midst Everard and Josephine, she radiantly beautiful, with a look of exultation on her face, but a tumult of conflicting emotions in her heart, as she wondered if Dr. Matthewson had told the truth, and was authorized to marry her really, and if Everard would stand to it or repudiate the act; he, with a face white now as ashes, and a voice which was husky in its tone when, to the question: “Dost thou take this woman for thy wedded wife? Dost thou promise to love her, and cherish her, both in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her?” he answered: “I do,” while a chill like the touch of death ran through every nerve and made him icy cold.
It was not the lark he thought it was going to be; it was like some dreadful nightmare, and he could not at all realize what he was doing or saying. Even Josephine’s voice, when she too said, “I will,” sounded very far away, as did Matthewson’s concluding words: “According to the authority vested in me I pronounce you man and wife. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”
How real it seemed to the breathless audience—so real that Agnes Fleming, sitting far back in the hall, in her faded muslin and old-fashioned bonnet, involuntarily rose to her feet and raised her hand with a deprecating gesture as if to forbid the bans. But her mother pulled her down to her seat, and in a low whisper bade her keep quiet.
And so the play went on, and was over at last; the crowd dispersed, and the tired actors, sleepy and cross, gathered up the paraphernalia scattered everywhere, and went to their several homes. Everard and Josephine were the last to leave, for she had so much to say, and so much to see to, that it was after twelve, and the summer moon was high in the heavens ere they started at last for home, accompanied by the young man with whom Everard was staying in Ellicottville, and who had come down to the play.