Helen and Hayward Graham were married on a day in late October.
CHAPTER XXIV
The chronicler of these events is aware that to the readers of this history the bare statement of the fact that Helen and her footman were wed comes as a shock. Nevertheless, it was a plain and straightforward path by which a careless and pitiless Fate had blindly brought Helen to her husband. A girl, treading by chance such a way as has been followed since the world was young by the feet of maidens of high degree who have loved below their station,—among the accidents and incidents of her romance she had come, unwitting, to an open door, an ill-placed door not designed for her passage, a "door of hope for the negro race" which her idolized father had thought to fashion and set wide: and she had passed it through—in reverse.
A secret marriage was not characteristic of Helen's ideas. She was betrayed into that by her warm impulsiveness. She had had a beautiful programme arranged for the fates to follow in. With a heart full of love and of dreams, and with faith in a future that would order itself at her bidding, she had planned the whole course of events that should lead up to a resplendent army wedding after Hayward had won his commission. She never doubted for a moment that all her roseate imaginings would come to pass, and railed upon him that he had not her faith: for Hayward was a doubter. The sheer altitude of his good fortune made him fearful and distrustful.
For the twentieth time she told off to him on her finger-tips the order in which his fortune should ascend.
—"And then, when you are an officer—and famous—you will marry—me."
"But that may never be," the man had answered. "Suppose the Senate should refuse to confirm my nomination? By your condition I should lose the commission and—infinitely more—you. If your love and faith are supreme you will marry me whether I win or lose."
"You shall not doubt my love or faith," Helen exclaimed impetuously. "I will marry you now, and as the President's son-in-law you can the more surely succeed. The Senators would not offer a personal affront to—"
"But I must bring this honour to you, not you to me," Hayward interrupted; "and, besides that, while I willingly, gladly, here and now, surrender all hope of this commission for ever and for ever if only you will marry me now, it is only fair to you for me to remind you that your father would never appoint his own son-in-law to a lieutenancy in the army."
"Oh, bother!" Helen protested. "I have my heart set on being a soldier's wife. Of course Papa couldn't give a commission to one of his family—what was I thinking about.... Well, there's nothing to do but wait, I suppose."