Not so Cora, who recklessly ran every risk for the sake of gratifying her love and ambition, hurrying on the wedding day in spite of her aunt’s lingering illness and painful anxiety, and despite the fact that she knew that secretly Frank resented the unseemly haste.
Indeed, she had overheard him lamenting it to Mrs. Dalrymple, saying:
“I fear it looks selfish to you, our marrying and going off in such haste, leaving you in this trouble.”
“Do not think of me. Cora is the only one to be considered now. She feels that she has waited too long for her happiness to have it postponed longer,” she answered.
He noticed that she made no reference to his own case, and flushed slightly, dreading lest she had penetrated the secret of his love for her missing daughter, and meant to rebuke him for fickleness to Cora.
He said no more, for Cora entered just then with a downcast face, having managed to overhear their brief conversation. They were going for a drive, and presently Mrs. Dalrymple was left alone with her thoughts.
They were not pleasant ones, for they veered with painful persistence between the missing daughter and the dead father.
In the dear, dead past she had loved him well, and the old love seemed to wake again, now that he was dead and beyond her tenderness.
So often since you went away,
I wonder in a vain despair,