Louder and louder rose the strains of the joyous wedding march while Dallas looked on with dazed eyes and a numb pain at his heart, wondering what would happen next.
He was not left long in doubt.
He saw Mrs. Fleming and Daisie Bell advancing to meet Royall Sherwood and his best man at the altar.
Something—a grinning demon—seemed to clutch at the gazer’s heart and stop its beating, for Daisie was the bride—a wedding veil hid the dazzling sheen of her golden hair.
CHAPTER XIII.
“HER OWN AGAIN.”
Dallas Bain watched with straining gaze that scene within Mrs. Fleming’s brilliant drawing-room, and his heart was wrung with a pain more bitter than death.
The vague belief and hope that had brought him back to Gull Beach were dashed to earth now, and despair reigned in its stead.
She had not loved him, after all; she had but played on his credulity to gratify a coquette’s vanity. The proof was here before him as she stood there all in bridal white, speaking the solemn words that bound her for aye to another.
“Fool that I was to return,” he muttered, in fierce self-scorn; and just then he caught a flutter of drapery near him, and a shrill voice giggled:
“La, me! if this ain’t Mr. Bain come back again! Howdydo, sir? Looking at the play, are you? But it does seem awful real like, don’t it? They got their parts well, certain! He’s even putting the ring on her hand, and now the women are kissing the bride. Ha! ha!”