Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/58

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH This programme appeared so easy, so tempting. It seemed as though everything had been shaped to this end, as if it were the will of Providence. Some one drew back the chairs, and a slender figure stood silently by my left side. I could not distinguish a feature of her averted face, but a vagrant breath of air blew a strand of soft hair against my cheek. Could I sacrifice her, even for such a cause? Suddenly, as if it were the whisper of the devil in my ear, came the controlling thought—she despises the man Dunn; she is being driven into this marriage against her will; possibly this very fraud on my part will best serve her, will eventually result in her final happiness. We would be together merely for an hour, or two hours; then she would be left safe in the care of friends, comprehending the deceit, angry with me, no doubt, yet nothing the worse for the adventure. It might even be that the marriage contracted under such peculiar circumstances would not be held as legal, while if it was, a divorce could be most easily obtained, on the ground of fraud, and it would remain in her memory afterwards merely as an unpleasant episode. What it might prove to me, I neither considered nor cared.

"You will join right hands."

How soft and small her hand was, how cold to the touch, and how it trembled beneath the clasp of my fingers! I can scarcely recall a word spoken; they came to me in the vaguest mumble of sound, conveying not the slightest meaning. I could see the broad shoulders of the Chaplain as he stood directly in front of us, his back to the steps; behind him appeared the dim outlines of the Colonel [ 50 ]