The sailor’s heart was heavy as he went and the glimpse of Cecilia which he had caught made it no lighter. He had tried to save her and failed. All yesterday, since his dreadful discovery, he had debated whether or no he ought to go to Fullarton, see her, and tell her that he had tried to bring Gilbert home; that he would, in all probability, arrive a few hours before her marriage. He turned the question over and over in his mind. The conclusion he came to was that, things having gone so far, he had better hold his peace. She could not draw back now, and, being forced to go on, the knowledge that her lover would have been in time, had she not hastened her marriage, might haunt her all her life. If Speid arrived at the hour he was expected he would hear from Jimmy Stirk of the wedding. Should he be determined to act, he would do so without his—Somerville’s—intervention; and, should he see fit to accept what now seemed the inevitable, he would, no doubt, have the sense to leave Whanland quietly. He would go there himself, on his return from Morphie Kirk, in the hope of finding him and inducing him to start before anyone should see him, and before Cecilia should learn how near to her he had been. It might well be that she would never know it, for she was to leave Fullarton, with her husband, at two o’clock, for Perth. They were to go south immediately.
The sailor was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed to find that, apparently, Speid had made no sign. Cecilia was there to play her part; no doubt, like many another, she would come to play it contentedly. With all his heart he pitied Gilbert. Meanwhile, as the carriages neared their destination, he could see the evergreen arch which some Morphie labourers had put up over the entrance at which the bride would alight.
The kirk could not be seen from the gate of the enclosure in which it stood, for the path took a turn round some thick bushes. A low dyke of unpointed stone girdled it and kept at bay the broom and whins clothing the hillock. When his phaeton stopped, Somerville got out, and was in time to greet the bride as Fullarton handed her out of the carriage; he did not fail to notice the tremor of the fingers he touched. He went on and slipped into a group of bystanders surrounding the door without observing the figure which stood near the kirk wall, a little apart.
A movement went through the group as Fullarton appeared by the tall bushes leading Cecilia. While they advanced a man walked forward and stood in the way; a man with splashed clothes and high boots, brown with the soil; the wet hair was dark upon his forehead and his eyes looked straight before him to where the bride came, brave and pale, under her green wreath. She saw him and stopped. Her hand slipped from Fullarton’s arm.
Unheeding Robert’s exclamation, he sprang towards her, his eyes burning.
‘Cecilia,’ he said, almost under his breath, ‘am I too late?’
The slight commotion caused by this unexpected incident had brought Barclay to the doorway; Crauford’s face could be seen behind his shoulder.
‘Great Heavens! Here’s Speid!’ exclaimed the lawyer, seizing his friend.
Fordyce moved irresolutely, longing to rush forward, but aware that custom decreed he should await his bride’s entrance in the kirk; he scarcely realized the import of what had happened outside its walls while he stood, unconscious, between them. Barclay ran out to the little group round which the onlookers were collecting, and he followed, unable to sacrifice his annoyance to his sense of what was expected. Not for a moment did he believe that decency could be outraged by anything more than an interruption. In the background stood Mary and Agneta, aghast under their pink-rosetted bonnets.
‘May I ask what you have come here for, sir?’ he inquired, approaching Gilbert.