'You see,' she said slowly. 'My whole coming out here—everything I've done lately, has been done in reaction against all I've done and felt before.'
'Would you have married that man—if everything had been on the square?'
'What do you mean by "on the square"? I've done nothing to be properly ashamed of!'
'No—no—I was thinking only of him, Biddy, did you love that man?—really love him?'
'I'm not sure yet whether I'm capable of what you'd call loving really. I had a violent attraction to him,'—he remembered the phrase—'I confess I did feel it dreadfully when he married someone else. Now it doesn't hurt me. And of course, he has gone out of my life altogether. I'm glad he has, and I hope he will keep on the other side of the world.'
'Well, let it stop at that.' He drew a breath of relief. 'I don't believe you really cared for him. If you had, you couldn't take it as you do. I'll never bother you again about that man. And, oh, my dear—my dear—it doesn't seem to me possible that you shouldn't come to love me, when I love you as I do—with my whole heart and soul—I worship you, Biddy. And I'll not say again that I'm unworthy of you—a man who loves a woman like that CAN'T be unworthy.'
He took her in his arms and kissed her. And this time she did not resist the caress.
They were married with much flourish of trumpets and local paraphernalia. Never before in the annals of Leichardt's Land had a wedding taken place from Government House. This one was regarded as quite an official event. The Executive Council—at that moment about to undergo the pangs of dissolution—attended in a body. There were a great many members of parliament present also. It became even a question whether the official uniforms worn at Sir Luke's 'Swearing In' should not lend eclat to the occasion. But Colin McKeith vetoed that proposition.
The bridal party drove straight from the Church to that same extemporized wharf by the Botanical Gardens which had been put up for the Governor's State Landing. It had been re-constructed and redecorated for to-day's event. Thus the embarcation of the bride and bridegroom, of the viceregal party and the wedding guests, in the Government yacht, which was to take the new-made pair to the big mail-boat in the Bay, was almost as imposing a ceremony as the Governor's Entry into his new kingdom. The day was glorious—an early Australian winter's day, when the camellia trees are in bud, and the autumn bulbs shedding perfumes, and garlands of late roses, honeysuckle and jasmine are still hanging on trellis and tree.
As the bridal party came down the avenue of bunyas, and the band played the Wedding Chorus from LOHENGRIN a feeling of dream-like incongruity came over Bridget. She laughed hysterically.