CHAPTER XXXII.
It was a strange bridal there in that quiet room where Molly had lain so many weary days and nights ill and suffering—a strange bridal, compared with the one in which the same two had been the principal actors less than a year before.
Then the man had been proud, smiling, happy, looking forward to a bright future; the bride had been lovely and radiant outwardly, whatever might have been her secret terrors at her hidden treachery.
But now all was changed. When the bridegroom entered with cold, averted eyes and a pale, stern, haughty countenance, following his brother, parents, the Barrys, and the minister, there rose to join him before the holy man of God a slight, drooping figure that had been crouching forlornly all the morning in an easy-chair, with the pale face bowed in its hands.
Cecil gave her a cold, slight, disdainful bow that chilled her to the heart, and made her shrink back sensitively against Doctor Charley, who had assisted her to rise from her chair. The young doctor whispered, hurriedly:
“Never mind his coldness now. You can soon win him back.”
He drew her forward and placed her trembling hand on Cecil’s arm. She stood there quivering with emotion, not daring to look up, afraid of the cold, angry faces around.
The good minister had been told a simple, plausibletale; some slight illegality had been detected in the marriage, and the principals had determined to have another ceremony to make all secure. There was nothing strange in it at all, and he did not wonder that the parties were sensitive over the matter, and desired to keep it secret. What he did wonder at was the cold, stern face of the handsome groom, and the ill and frightened looks of the pallid bride. But he did not possess the clew to these strange looks, and he was ushered out so quickly after he read the ceremony and pronounced the prayers, that he could not see whether any good wishes were offered or not. Cecil and Charley went out with him, and all the rest followed, except the bride and the alert Phebe, and Louise Barry, who had stayed behind to whisper, vindictively:
“So you have got him again by your cunning! Well, remember what I told you. If you betrayme, if you breathe one word to defend yourself I swear I will compass yourdeath!”
Phebe pushed in between them.
“Go away, Miss Barry, and leave her alone, or I shall tell her husband how you have treated her,” she threatened.
Louise gave her a wicked glance.
“Tell him—but it will be atherperil,” she said, menacingly, as she trailed her rich garments through the door-way.
Phebe slammed the door and turned to her mistress, who had fallen down wearily on a sofa.
“I shall tell Mr. Cecil of this woman’s wicked treatment of you,” she exclaimed; but Molly held up a warning hand.
“No, no, you will not tell him,” she said. “I—I amnot afraid of Louise. Oh, Phebe!” with sudden, irrepressible anguish, “is he not going to speak to me, is he going away from me like this?”
Phebe thought she had never seen such a terrible fear and dread as looked at her from Molly’s large, lustrous eyes that looked so big and bright in her small, pale face. Tears came into her own.
“He will come back directly, dear, I’m sure,” she said; but not being so sure as she pretended, she whisked out of the room in a hurry.
She saw Doctor Charley going away with the minister, and poking her head audaciously into the parlor, beheld Cecil Laurens the center of a condoling group, Miss Barry being close at his elbow.
“Mr. Laurens, your wife wants to see you,” she said, abruptly.
He started and frowned; but with the perfect courtesy of which he was master, disengaged himself from the group and came toward her, saying in a low voice:
“Can you not bring me her message, Phebe?”
“No, sir!” in such a curt, dry tone that he flushed to his temples, pushed angrily past her, and returned to the room where he had left his sad little bride without a word or look.
He had to look at her now, and angry as he was he started in surprise at the change her weeks of illness and grief had wrought.
There was in her dress and air no attempt at wedding bravery. She wore a quiet, silver-gray silk, with ribbons of the same sober hue that gave her a demure, Quaker-like appearance. He had seen her in the same dress before when her vivid face had lighted it up into beauty, but now her thinness, her pallor, her expressionof humility and misery combined, was actually painful to behold.
He stopped in front of her, and her haggard face lighted up with something like hope.
“You sent for me?” he said, icily.
And she faltered, humbly:
“I wanted to—to—thank you, Cecil, for—for—your—kindness to me in—in repairing the—the—”
The faltering voice broke down entirely, choked by sobs. Molly’s face dropped into her hands, and tears fell through her fingers.
Cecil Laurens stood regarding her in silence, apparently unmoved by her passionate emotion.
He thought, angrily:
“She is trying to move me by the arts of the actress inherited from her low mother, but she will not succeed.”
But it was not comfortable to watch those tears, even while he believed them feigned.
He moved restlessly, and spoke:
“It was not worth your while to thank me, for you must be aware that it was not for your own sake that I made the sacrifice of an hour ago, but only that the honor of the Laurens family might remain untarnished.”
She murmured, brokenly, through her tears:
“Yes, I know. Your brother told me. But—since you disdain thanks from me—let me thank you in the name of my unborn child for the mercy you have had on us both! Oh, Cecil, husband,” rising in a gust of passion and falling down humbly at his feet, “will you not let me tell you all my story; how I was tempted, how I fell into error? I am not so wicked as youthink me. I—I—oh, Heaven! he has gone without a glance or a single kind word!” for he had turned deliberately and left the room.