"Don't let us talk of him," answers the girl pettishly. "I feel quite wicked, nurse, when I think of what I am doing. It seems to come home to me so terribly now. But it's too late to help anything—too late!"
"Dinna say those words; they have a wearyful sound on your bonnie lips," says the aged woman tenderly. "Maybe, it will turn out better than ye think; and the mistress's heart was just set upon it, you know, and she was always a masterful woman in her way. Ay—ay, my bairn, it's ill to greet o'er spilt milk, and all the kye in the byrne. There, now, they'll e'en be calling you. Yes, I'll remember about Maister Keith, and he'll hear it as gently as my auld lips can tell him. Ye may trust Nannie for that. Run ye doon now, my dearie, and God bless your bonnie face, and give you a' the happiness He sees fit."
There is a hurried embrace, and then the girl takes up her long, floating train in her left hand, and so goes out of the room and down the stairs, and enters her own chamber once more.
"What a time you have been!" exclaims her mother impatiently; "and Henriette is waiting to put on your veil. Sit down; the carriage will be here directly."
Without a word the girl seats herself before the glass, and the deft fingers of the French maid fastens the filmy lace on the beautiful head, and like a transparent cloud it seems to float over and envelop the lovely figure in its misty folds.
She looks so exquisitely lovely that both mother and maid hold their breath for one moment, and then murmur rhapsodies of admiration. The girl looks quietly at herself, and says nothing. She knows she is beautiful; she has proved it often enough in her three seasons of London life, but to-day she cares very little about that beauty, for her heart is troubled and her peace has fled. If only that letter had not come!
Alas! it is too late now for regrets or repentance. The moments hurry on—hurry on as if they would drag her to her doom with flying wings, not creep along leaden-footed, as her own reluctance would have had them. How is it she feels like this now—now when it is so useless, so vain? A few days—nay, even a few hours ago, and she was content enough; but there seems no content possible now, and the nearer the hour approaches, the greater grows her dread.
"One moment, mother," she says, as Mrs. Douglas turns to leave the room. "Henriette, you may go."
The maid retires, and the girl, her face growing very white, comes close to her mother again, and lays her hand on her arm.
"Must I go through with it?" she says almost wildly. "Could I not take back my word—even now?"