"And you gave the promise," said Florence, while her beautiful features settled into a grieved and dissatisfied expression. "You gave this promise?"
"Why, Florence, what ails you? I had no choice. You had already left home, and he would listen to no other terms."
"A week or two—our marriage kept secret so long," said Florence in a tone of dissatisfaction. "You did well to say I was risking much for you. My life had been little—but this—"
"And is this too much? Do you begin to regret, Florence?"
Nothing could have been more gentle, more replete with tenderness, ardent but full of reproach, than the tone in which these words were uttered. Florence lifted her eyes to his, tears came into them, and then she smiled brightly once more.
"Oh! let us have done with this; I am nervous, agitated, unreasonable I suppose; of course you have done right," she said, "but at first the thoughts of this concealment terrified me."
"Hark! I hear wheels. It must be the clergyman and Byrne," said Jameson, listening.
"And is a stranger coming," inquired Florence, "any one but the clergyman? I was not prepared for that!"
"But we must have a witness. He is my friend, and one that can be trusted. You need have no fear of Byrne."
"They are here!" said Florence, who had been listening with checked breath, while her face waxed very pale. "It is the step of two persons on the gravel. Let me go—let me go for an instant, this is no dress for a bride," and she glanced hurriedly at her black silk dress, relieved only by a frill of lace and a knot or two of rose-colored ribbon.