"Separate this moment!" cried Sandford. "Or resolve to be separated only by--death! Lord Elmwood, do you love this woman?"
"More than my life!" he replied, with the most heartfelt accents.
He then turned to Miss Milner.
"Can you say the same by him?"
She spread her hands over her eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, heavens!"
"I believe you can say so," returned Sandford. "And in the name of God, and your own happiness, since this is the state of you both, let me put it out of your power to part?"
On which he opened his book and--married them.
Nevertheless, on that joyful day which restored her lost lover to her hopes again, even on that very day after the ceremony was over, Miss Milner--with all the fears, the superstition of her sex--felt an excruciating shock when, looking on the ring Lord Elmwood had put upon her finger in haste, she perceived it was a mourning-ring.
IV.--Outcasts
Alas! in seventeen years the beautiful, beloved Miss Milner was no longer beautiful, no longer beloved, no longer virtuous.