"Dead! O papa! papa!"
"It is very sad, my dear, and very shocking; and terribly unfortunate that it should have occurred just at this time. A postponed wedding is ever ominous of evil."
"Oh! pray, papa, don't think of that. Don't think of me! Poor Lady Thetford! Poor Rupert! You will go over at once, papa, will you not?"
"Certainly, my dear. And I will tell the servants, so that when our guests arrive, you may not be disturbed. Since it was to be," muttered the Indian officer under his mustache, "I would give half my fortune that it had been one day later. A postponed marriage is the most ominous thing under the sun."
He left the room, and Aileen sat with her hands clasped, and an unutterable awe overpowering every other feeling. She forgot her own disappointment in the awful mystery of sudden death. Her share of the trial was light—a year of waiting, more or less; what did it matter, since Rupert loved her unchangeably; but, poor Lady Thetford, called away in one instant from earth, and all she held most dear, on her son's wedding-day. And then Aileen, remembering how much the dead woman had loved her, and how fondly she had welcomed her as a daughter, covered her face with her hands, and wept as she might have wept for her own mother.
"I never knew a mother's love or care," Aileen thought; "and I was doubly happy in knowing I was to have one at last. And now—and now—"
It was a drearily long morning to the poor bride elect, sitting alone in her chamber, or pacing restlessly up and down. She heard the roll of carriages up the drive, the pause that ensued, and then their departure. She wondered how he bore it; best of all, May had said; but then he was ever still, and strong, and self-restrained. She knew how dear that poor, ailing mother had ever been to him, and she knew how bitterly he would feel her loss.
"They talk of presentiments," mused Miss Jocyln, walking wearily to and fro; "and see how happy and hopeful I was this morning, while she lay dead and he mourned. If I only dared go to him—my own Rupert."
It was late in the afternoon before Col. Jocyln returned. He strode straight to his daughter's presence, wearing a pale, fagged face.
"Well, papa?" she asked, faintly.