"Then, I thank you," she muttered faintly.
And that was all, absolutely all. He opened the door, and in her sacque and Lady Betty's Tuscan, as she stood--for she had no change to make--she passed down the stairs before him, and walked beside him through the rain across a corner of Shepherd's Market. Thence they passed along Curzon Street in the direction of the little chapel with the country church porch--over against Mayfair Chapel, and conveniently near the Hercules Pillars--in which the Rev. Alexander Keith held himself ready to marry all comers, at all hours, without notice or licence.
It was the common dinner time, and the streets were quiet; they met no one whom they knew. Sophia, dazed and shaken, had scarcely power to think; she walked beside him mechanically, as in a dream, and could never remember in after days the way she went to be married, or whether she travelled the route on foot or in a chair. The famous Dr. Keith, baulked of one couple and one guinea--for that was his fee, and it included the clerk and a stamped certificate--welcomed the pair with effusion. Accustomed to unite at one hour a peer of the realm to a reigning toast, at another an apprentice to his master's daughter, he betrayed no surprise even when he recognised Sir Hervey Coke; but at once he led the way to the chapel, set the kneelers, called the witnesses, and did his part. He wondered a little, it is true, when he noticed Sophia's pallor and strange dress; but the reasons people had for marrying were nothing to him; the fee was everything, and in ten minutes the tie was tied.
Then only, as they stood waiting in the parlour while the certificate was being written, fear seized her, and a great horror, and she knew what she had done. She turned to Sir Hervey and held out her shaking hands to him, her face white and piteous. "You will be good to me?" she cried. "You will be good to me? You will keep your word?"
"While I live," he said quietly. "Why not, child?"
But, calmly as he spoke, his face, as they went out together, wore the look it wore at White's when he played deep; when, round the shaded candles, oaks, noted in Domesday, crashed down, and long-descended halls shook, and the honour of great names hung on the turn of a die. For, deep as he had played, much as he had risked, even to his home, even to his line, he had made to-day the maddest bet of all. And he knew it.
CHAPTER XIII
[THE WELCOME HOME]
"Your Grace is very good to call," Mrs. Northey said, working her fan with a violence that betrayed something of the restraint which she was putting on her feelings. "But, of course, the mischief is done now, the girl is gone, and----"
"I know, my dear, I know," the duchess answered soothingly. "Believe me, I am almost as sorry as if she were one of my own daughters."