Mr. Huntress braced himself to encounter the crowd of wondering people in the drawing-room, and, going out, explained as briefly as possible the sudden illness of the bride, and the sympathetic guests, with a few well-bred expressions of regret, immediately dispersed, and in less than fifteen minutes the mansion was cleared and the stricken household left to itself, while not a suspicion of the fearful truth had got abroad.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WHAT BECAME OF GEOFFREY.
Gladys lay so long in her swoon that not only her friends but the physician also became greatly alarmed lest she should never rally; the shock which had caused this suspension of animation might end in death.
Everet Mapleson, too, as he sat alone in that small room back of the drawing-room, was in a very unenviable frame of mind. He knew that if Gladys should die her death would lie at his door; he would really have been her murderer, and such a disastrous result of his reckless plot he had never contemplated.
He had fondly hoped, as he told Mr. Huntress, that, in the excitement and gayety of the evening, surrounded by friends and receiving their congratulations, he could easily play Geoffrey’s part, and she would not detect the imposition until they should start off alone upon their wedding journey. He had practiced many little mannerisms that were peculiar to Geoffrey, changing his voice, as far as he could, to imitate his, and had not reckoned upon the keenness of love to discover the fraud so readily.
He had expected that Gladys would be very unreconciled and unreasonable at first, but he had hoped, when she realized that there was no help for the deed, she might resign herself to the inevitable, and that he would gradually win her love by the influence of his own for her and his devotion to her. He had been wholly unprepared, however, for the exceeding horror and loathing which she had evinced upon discovering him, and she had thoroughly frightened him by her rigid despair and the terrible lethargy which had followed it.
When they bore her away to her room he fain would have followed, his anxiety was so great upon her account; but as he essayed to do so, Mr. Huntress turned upon him in sudden fury.
“Stay where you are!” he commanded, “or, what would be better still, leave the house altogether.”
“I shall not leave the house, sir,” the young man answered, doggedly, and he resumed his seat, resolved to brave it out to the end, though a sickening fear was creeping over him that the end might be such as would make him wish he had never been born.
So the poor little bride was borne from his sight, her bridal robes were removed, and everything done for her recovery that love could do or professional skill could suggest.