Once more she seemed to sleep, and at the end of another hour Helen went home.
CHAPTER XV.
A STARTLING APPARITION.
The next four months slipped swiftly away. They were filled full with joyous anticipations and pleasant occupations, while Helen, now that she no longer feared Dorothy's happiness or prospects would be disturbed, regained her accustomed serenity, and once more became absorbed in the numberless details involved in making ready for a wedding.
A great burden had been lifted from her heart, for all those menacing newspapers and photographs, with every other telltale evidence of the unhappy past, that had been treasured by the once popular opera favorite, had been destroyed, and nothing remained that could even remotely bear witness to it, save a small tablet, bearing the name of "Marie Duncan," that had been placed in a quiet corner of a distant churchyard outside the city.
The months of August and September Dorothy and her mother spent in the Berkshires, on a pleasant farm adjoining "Avondale," the fine estate and summer home of the Alexanders.
This arrangement was made for the benefit of the lovers, in order to enable them to see each other every day, and enjoy the pleasures of country life together, during the brief interval previous to their marriage.
The wedding had been set for the first of October, and, at the request of the bride-elect, who shrank from the confusion and excitement of a society function, was quietly solemnized at noon on that date, in the pretty near-by village church. Here Helen gave her daughter away to the man whom she believed to be in every way worthy of her one treasure, and the simple ceremony was followed by a reception and an elaborate breakfast at Avondale for the limited number of friends who were bidden to grace the occasion.
Thus, with apparently nothing to cast a shadow over her future, Dorothy Ford became the wife of Clifford Alexander, and the happy couple went away for a month or two of travel, while a beautiful home, adjoining the Alexander estate on the Hudson, was being prepared for their occupancy upon their return.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander, Senior, returned immediately to their home on the Hudson, and Madam Ford to New York to resume her work and prepare for her winter engagements.