“Put your arm around me, Tessa.”
The long night ended at last in the dull dawn, for it was raining still. Tessa had slept fitfully; Sue had lain perfectly quiet, not speaking again or moving.
At eleven o’clock Sue and Dr. Lake were married. Dr. Greyson sat with his head in his hands, turned away from them, his broad frame shaking from head to foot; Tessa did not look at Dr. Lake: she sat on a sofa beside Mrs. Towne, with her eyes fixed on the carpet. Sue cried and laughed together when her father kissed her; she drew herself to the full height of Mrs. Gerald Lake, when Dr. Towne shook hands with her. At half past twelve the bride and bridegroom were driven to the depot; Tessa remained to give a few orders to the servants, and was then taken home in Dr. Towne’s carriage.
“It seems to me as lonely as a funeral,” she said; “and Sue is laughing and eating chocolate cream drops this very minute. Marriage should be a leap into the sunshine.”
“I hope that yours will be,” her companion said in his gravest tone.
“If it ever is, you may rest assured that it will be. It will be the very happiest sunshine that ever shone out of heaven.”
She was learning to talk to Dr. Towne as easily as she talked to her father, for he was the one man in the world that she was sure that she would never marry; she knew that he desired it as little as she did herself.
“Why will it be so happy?”
“Because I shall wait till I am satisfied.”
“Satisfied with him? You will never be that.”