The Rafael Sabatini Megapack. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted mind a truth undreamed of. “When some day—please Heaven—I come to find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness? Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine? I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you’ll confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same.”

      “You are very sure that I shall come to love you, said she, shifting woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place on which at first she had taken her stand.

      “Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church tomorrow?”

      She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that what he said might come to pass.

      “Since you bear such faith in your heart,” said she, “were it not nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and wed me afterwards?”

      “It is the course I should, myself, prefer,” he answered quietly. “But it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you, whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from constant repetition?”

      “Do you say that these tales are groundless?” she asked, with a sudden lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.

      “I would to God I could,” he cried, “since from your manner I see that would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the youth of cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels ’twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you receive this fellow Blake—a London night-scourer, a broken gamester who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your fortune he may close the doors of the debtor’s gaol that’s open to receive him.”

      “This is unworthy in you,” she exclaimed, her tone indignant—so indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.

      “It would be were I his rival,” he answered quietly. “But I am not. I have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to marry me.”

      “That I may become the prey of such as you, instead,” was her retort.

      He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now compared himself, “Surely,” said he, “it is better to become the prey of the lion than the jackal.”

      “To the victim it can matter little,” she answered, and he saw the tears gathering in her eyes.

      Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside her.

      “I swear,” he said impassionedly, “that as my wife you shall never count yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title of your husband.” He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose and looked at her. “Tomorrow,” he said, and bowing low before her went his way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but defied her maiden mind to understand them.

      The morrow came her wedding-day—a sunny day of early June, and Ruth—assisted by Diana and Lady Horton—made preparation for her marriage as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold, determined to show the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was necessary for Richard’s sake. That was a thing long since determined. Yet it would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her side; it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks for the holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds most dear and sacred. But Richard was away—he had been absent since yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.

      With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary’s Church at noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding—very fine in a suit of sky-blue satin, laced with silver—awaiting her. And with him was old Lord Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of benignity and ruddy health.

      For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding’s side. But Nick had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.

      Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses—and little did they guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as incense in the temple.

      “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” droned the parson’s voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him, “No man. I have taken her for myself.”

      Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt her hand lying in Mr. Wilding’s cool, firm grasp.

      The ecclesiastic’s voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of some great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they were welded each to the other until death should part them.

      Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding’s aquiline face a pale smile glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained from head to foot.

      He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding—for he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom’s coat. His voice came harsh with excitement and smouldering rage.

      “A word with you, Anthony!”

      Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. “What now?” he asked, his bride’s hand retained in the crook of his elbow.

      “Treachery!” snapped Trenchard in a whisper. “Hell and damnation! Step aside, man.”

      Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of Mistress Wilding. “I deplore this interruption,” he told her, no whit ruffled by what he had heard. “But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile, his lordship will do the honours for me.” This last he said with his eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.

      Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin’s calm, took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin. Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.

      “Shenke,” said he, “who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from the Duke, СКАЧАТЬ