The bride and her attendants had already left her “maiden bower,” and Lady Maude was met at the foot of the stairs by Lord Villiers, who drew her arm within his, and whispered, in a thrilling voice:
“My bride! my wife! my queen! my beautiful Maude! never so beautiful as now! Mine, mine forever!”
“Yes, yours forever!” she softly and earnestly said, looking up in his face with a joy too intense for smiles.
There was no time for further speech. Captain Jernyngham had drawn the willing hand of the proud Kate within his arm, and felt his heart throb in a most unaccountable manner beneath her light touch. Young Howard took possession of our gay Miss Clara, whose whole heart and soul was bent on the conquest she was about to make of that “dear, old thing,” the Duke of B——, and the bridal cortege passed into the grand, flower-strewn saloon.
The company parted on either side as they advanced, and under the battery of many hundred eyes they approached the bishop. Book in hand, that reverend personage stood, patiently awaiting their coming, and looked approvingly over his spectacles at the beautiful bride and handsome, stately bridegroom as they stood up before him.
And then, amid the profoundest silence, the marriage ceremony was begun.
You might have heard a pin drop, so deep was the stillness that reigned—as every one held their breath to catch each word of that most interesting of rites—doubly interesting to ladies. Of the three standing before him, one heart was beating with a joy too deep and intense for words to tell. Lady Kate’s handsome eyes stole quick glances now and then at the gay, young guardsman, as she thought, with a thrilling heart, how much she could love him, but for the humiliation of loving unsought. Little Miss Clara, with her head poised on one side, and her finger on her lip, was building a castle in Spain, where she saw herself blazing with “family diamonds,” and addressed as “Duchess of B——.” As for the gentlemen, I don’t intend describing their sensation—never having been a gentleman myself (more’s the pity!) but will leave it to the imagination of my readers.
The last “I will” had been uttered; and amid that breathless silence Ernest Seyton, Viscount Villiers, and Maude Percy were pronounced man and wife.
There was an instant’s pause, and the guests were about to press forward to offer their congratulations, when pealing through the silence came an unseen voice, in clear, bell-like tones that thrilled every heart, with the words:
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life! My curse, and the curse of Heaven rest on all of the house of De Courcy!”