Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/54

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH neighborhood. Here was a most awkward predicament, indeed,—the prearranged, hurried wedding between him and that young, sweet-faced girl, with the gray-blue eyes. The pleasant memory of her came before me instantly, the musical sound of her soft voice, with its delicate Southern accent, the pathetic pleading of her girlish expression, the carelessly ruffled hair, the indignant tone with which she had spoken of her coming lover. Merciful God! I was certainly up against a hard proposition. What could I do? How, even now, could I manage to escape from the coils steadily closing about me? My head was in a whirl; I was unable to think clearly.

Young Denslow, his hand still grasping my sleeve, his brain full of interest in the affair, was rattling off, in boyish fashion, a string of remarks, the meaning of which scarcely penetrated to the recesses of my bewildered mind. There appeared to me no path leading out from this labyrinth now, but through the killing of some one; yet every manly instinct within me revolted against cold-blooded murder. I was a soldier, but never an assassin. And surely there was yet an opportunity for escape—the very lateness of the hour, the urgent requirement for haste on the part of all concerned, the possibility that the necessary papers had not been procured, the girl's strong opposition to the ceremony. Surely, aided by all these, I might yet discover some means for averting the full consequences of this misfortune; ay, might even serve her a good turn by preventing her being forced into a marriage with Dunn. Anyway, I should be in no worse position on the porch than [ 46 ]