“Near there,” he said, and his lips closed. For a minute he was silent. Her eyes dropped beneath his gaze, she seemed to be trembling, and fragile—oh, so fragile, a little gust of wind might have swept the slight thin form away. He opened his lips to speak, but no sound came from them.
“You are so thoughtful,” she asked gently; “I have not vexed you?”
“No;” and there was a long pause. Then he spoke again.
“Anne,” he said, and went a little further from her, “I think perhaps it would be as well if we were married at once.” The tears came into her eyes, her mouth twitched, there was a pause before she found words to speak.
“My dear one,” she said, “is it really true that all your heart is mine; you are sure, dear Alfred?”
“Yes,” he answered, in a voice he tried to make gentle, but that, oddly enough, sounded half defiant, “I told you so last night.”
“I know,” she answered; “only I have not deserved such happiness,” and the tears stole down her cheeks. “I have lived so long alone, my dear one; but all my life is yours, Alfred, all my life, and the truest love that woman can give I will give you,” and she clasped her hands while she spoke—she seemed to be making the promise before some unseen witness to whom she owed account of all her doings.
A week later Alfred Wimple and Mrs. Baines were married from the little lodging in Portsea Place. It was a sensation in Mrs. Hooper’s monotonous life. She would have laughed and made fun of the wedding, but that Aunt Anne’s dignity forbade almost a smile. The old lady seemed to be in a dream, the beginning of which she hardly remembered—to be living through the end of a poem, the first part of which she had learned in her youth. Her poor weak eyes looked soft and loving, and the smile that came and went about her mouth had something in it that was pathetic rather than ridiculous. She had conjured a grey wedding-dress from somewhere, and a grey bonnet to match, but the cold caused her to wrap herself round in the big cloak she always wore. She pulled on her gloves, which were large and ill-fitting, and stood before the glass looking at herself, but all the time her thoughts were straying back to forty years and more ago. If only time could be conquered, and its cruel hand held back—if flesh and blood could change as little as sometimes do the souls they clothe, how different would be the lives of men and women! The woman who went down the stairs was old and wrinkled outwardly, but within she was as full of tenderness as any girl of twenty going forth to meet her lover. She stepped into the four-wheel cab alone, the biting wind swept maliciously over her face, and quickly she pulled up the window. It was but a little way to the church. It stood in the middle of an open space; she started when she caught sight of it, then turned away her head for a moment with a strange dread: and her courage almost gave way as she stopped before the deserted doorway. Alfred Wimple heard her arrive, and came to meet her with the hesitating, half-doubtful look that his face always wore when he was with her. There was no tenderness in his manner, there was something almost like shame. But he seemed to be impelled by fate and unable to turn back. The old lady’s heart was full; the tears came into her eyes. She took his arm, and together they walked up the empty aisle. The two odd people who had been pressed into service as witnesses came forward, the clergyman appeared, he looked for a moment at the couple before him, but it was no business of his to interfere, and slowly he began the service.
A quarter of an hour later Aunt Anne and Alfred Wimple were man and wife.