“You have turned against the woman you swore to love, honor and protect, and you have earned my contempt by your weakness,” fearlessly. “What is there in a name that you should hate her so? She is the same girl you loved and married, call her by what name you will!”
CHAPTER XXXII.
It was a strange bridal there in that quiet room where Molly had lain so many weary days and nights ill and suffering—a strange bridal, compared with the one in which the same two had been the principal actors less than a year before.
Then the man had been proud, smiling, happy, looking forward to a bright future; the bride had been lovely and radiant outwardly, whatever might have been her secret terrors at her hidden treachery.
But now all was changed. When the bridegroom entered with cold, averted eyes and a pale, stern, haughty countenance, following his brother, parents, the Barrys, and the minister, there rose to join him before the holy man of God a slight, drooping figure that had been crouching forlornly all the morning in an easy-chair, with the pale face bowed in its hands.
Cecil gave her a cold, slight, disdainful bow that chilled her to the heart, and made her shrink back sensitively against Doctor Charley, who had assisted her to rise from her chair. The young doctor whispered, hurriedly:
“Never mind his coldness now. You can soon win him back.”
He drew her forward and placed her trembling hand on Cecil’s arm. She stood there quivering with emotion, not daring to look up, afraid of the cold, angry faces around.
The good minister had been told a simple, plausible tale; some slight illegality had been detected in the marriage, and the principals had determined to have another ceremony to make all secure. There was nothing strange in it at all, and he did not wonder that the parties were sensitive over the matter, and desired to keep it secret. What he did wonder at was the cold, stern face of the handsome groom, and the ill and frightened looks of the pallid bride. But he did not possess the clew to these strange looks, and he was ushered out so quickly after he read the ceremony and pronounced the prayers, that he could not see whether any good wishes were offered or not. Cecil and Charley went out with him, and all the rest followed, except the bride and the alert Phebe, and Louise Barry, who had stayed behind to whisper, vindictively:
“So you have got him again by your cunning! Well, remember what I told you. If you betray me, if you breathe one word to defend yourself I swear I will compass your death!”