Mrs. Lecount is certain to
come here on her return from Zurich, and is certain to ask me where you
are gone. You may think it strange, Mr. Vanstone; but when I tell her I
don't know, I wish to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of feeling, for once
in a way, that I am speaking the truth!"
With those words, he opened the sitting-room door, introduced Noel
Vanstone to Magdalen's presence, bowed himself out of the room again,
and set forth alone to while away the rest of the afternoon by taking
a walk. His face showed plain tokens of anxiety, and his party-colored
eyes looked hither and thither distrustfully, as he sauntered along the
shore. "The time hangs heavy on our hands," thought the captain. "I wish
to-morrow was come and gone."
The day passed and nothing happened; the evening and the night followed,
placidly and uneventfully. Monday came, a cloudless, lovely day; Monday
confirmed the captain's assertion that the marriage was a certainty.
Toward ten o'clock, the clerk, ascending the church steps quoted the old
proverb to the pew-opener, meeting him under the porch: "Happy the bride
on whom the sun shines!"
In a quarter of an hour more the wedding-party was in the vestry, and
the clergyman led the way to the altar.
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