Later on her husband looked in at the dressing-room door, saying kindly:
“How is Cora, poor child? I have something to tell her about Laurier if I may come in!”
“Speak quickly!” cried the half-distraught girl, turning almost fiercely upon him. “Has anything happened to the wretch?”
“I was just about to say that I just now met Hazelton, and he told me he saw Laurier and Noel at Greenwood when the funeral services over your aunt’s daughter were concluded at the vault.”
“At her funeral—in our bridal hour! False, wicked wretch! I will never forgive him, never! May the curse of a forsaken bride blight his life from now to the grave! May the cruelest misfortunes of life overtake him!” raved the insulted girl in the madness of her wounded love and pride.
“Be calm, Cora, I shall avenge this slight to you,” her cousin said angrily, and just then he received a summons from downstairs.
It was sunset, and Ernest Noel, very pale and shaken, had just been released on bail and come to bring them the news of all that had happened to prevent Laurier from meeting his bride at the altar—lying instead at a hospital at the point of death.
CHAPTER XIV.
WAVES OF MEMORY.
When Laurier and Noel had both been taken away, the man whose bicycle had been the cause of their calamity stood alone among the curious onlookers gazing somewhat ruefully at the ruin of his wheel.
He was a fair-haired, fine-looking gentleman approaching middle age, and his blue eyes had in them a grave, sad expression, as of one who had looked on the sadder side of life.