“Amen,” was the solemn response.
“And now, Maude, what need of further delay? When shall this dear hand be mine?”
“Whenever you claim it, dear Ernest. I shall have no will but yours now,” she answered, with all a woman’s devotion in her deep eyes, “I am yours—yours through life, and beyond death, if I may.”
CHAPTER X.
THE VOICE OF COMING DOOM.
“They spake not a word. But like dumb statues or breathless stones, Stared on each other and looked deadly pale.” Shakspeare.
“Oh! positively, your ladyship is looking perfectly dazzling! I never, no, never saw anybody half so beautiful in my life! Oh, Lady Kate! isn’t she charming?” And little Miss Clara Jernyngham, in an outburst of enthusiasm, earnestly clasped her little white hands, flashing with jewels, together, and went off into a look of ecstasy wonderful to behold.
Lady Kate McGregor, the proud, dark-eyed daughter of an impoverished Scottish nobleman, smiled quietly as she replied:
“Lady Maude is always lovely, and like all brides, looks doubly so now. How many of the gentlemen will envy Lord Villiers to-night!”