“Isabel,” I said, “does your uncle know that we love each other?”
“Oh! no, no; he would kill me if he knew it,” she replied, speaking in a whisper, and looking up at me with an expression of terror and trust that nerved me to anything.
“What, then, are we to do? Shall I speak to him at once?” I asked.
“There is no use speaking to him; he will never let me marry you, Clide. Forgive me for making you unhappy,” she said, clasping her hands on my arm, while the big tears ran down her face. “I never ought to have let you care for me. I never ought to have let myself love you, but I could not help it; I could not help it.”
Her head fell on my shoulder, and the sobs shook the frail little figure that leaned against me with the artless confidence of a child.
“You shall marry me, darling,” I cried; “no uncle that ever lived shall separate us. I swear it! We shall be married before we leave this. Trust to me to do everything; we will arrange it all before that old Turk knows or suspects anything. Promise only to trust to me entirely and to do as I ask you. Promise me, Isabel.”
She promised, placing her hand confidingly in mine.
Next morning, soon after sunrise, while Mr. Prendergast was still asleep, we two stole out to the little church where a few stray worshippers sang their hymns to the music of the waterfall, and were married by the old clergyman of the place. My man, Stanton, and the sexton were the only witnesses. It was indeed a wedding after my own heart, all done as quietly as if marrying a wife were as much an every-day accident in life as taking a walk before breakfast. Isabel was, if possible, more delighted with the mode of proceeding than [pg 606] I was. I forget how she came to make the avowal, but I know it was quite spontaneous, that she hated the fuss and paraphernalia of a wedding in England as she hated a thunder-storm; and that if she had been given her choice, she would infinitely have preferred this quiet little marriage of ours to the most magnificent display that could have been got up for her in Scotland. We were as happy as two children as we walked home together. But then came the business of telling Mr. Prendergast. Isabel declared she would rather die than enter his presence now alone; he would read her rebellious act on her face, and he would kill her. He was capable of anything when he was roused. I was not going to risk my treasure within his reach. I sat down and wrote a respectful letter, informing him that I had become the husband of his niece, and requesting his forgiveness for what might seem a violation of good faith, but which his own conscience would, I felt sure, find an excuse for in my behalf. I stated my fortune and position more accurately than I had been able to do to Isabel, who put her hand to my mouth when I attempted to speak of settlements and so forth, saying she wanted to hear nothing about my money. I now begged of Mr. Prendergast to let me know what his wishes were concerning his niece's fortune, and pledged myself beforehand to conform to them, and prove by my conduct in this respect that money was the last consideration that had actuated me in marrying an heiress. In answer to this I received a curt line informing me that I had behaved like a scoundrel, and that, as a gentleman, Mr. Prendergast declined to meet me, and that I had better take myself off with my wife before chance threw me in his way again. Isabel was overjoyed at this unexpected issue. I was stung by the man's insolence and his unjust accusations, but, on the whole, it was the easiest way of getting rid of him and securing myself and Isabel from his brutal temper and ungovernable violence.
We left Niagara that day. I wrote to my step-mother, acquainting her that I was a married man, and announcing the day she might expect to see us at the Moat. I wrote for places in the next steamer, and we were fortunate enough to find two vacant ones at nearly the last moment in a splendid vessel that sailed from New York. It had occurred to me that before leaving America it would have been prudent and rational to make some inquiries concerning the landed property which my wife held in Canada; but as she did not propose this, I feared it might strike her unfavorably if I did, and suggest that her uncle's insulting insinuations were not as unfounded as I wished her to believe. I therefore abandoned the idea, and we left the United States without my asking a single question on the subject.
The voyage homeward was delightful. Isabel formed plans for the future that sounded like songs from Arcadia, and drew a picture of our life at the Moat that looked like a vision of the Elysian fields. We stopped a week in London to extemporize a trousseau and purchase some trinkets, and then I took my wife to her Welsh home. My step-mother gave her a gracious, if not a hearty, welcome. It was a very quiet home-coming; nothing, indeed, could have been tamer. There were no tenantry to meet us, no rejoicings either in the village or [pg 607] at the house. I thought this strange, though it was strictly in accordance with the desires I had always expressed on the subject to my step-mother. Isabel, however, was entirely satisfied, and confessed to me that she had been in a nervous flutter all the way home, fearing to find some horror in the shape of a deputation from the tenants or something awaiting us at our journey's end.