Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/234

224 meager, very slight. Oh, well—she mustn't worry—not yet. Everything would be all right if he loved her.

Reba had not forgotten Nathan. But the revelation that she loved, and was loved, in such a manner as this, made her relations to Nathaniel Cawthorne appear insignificant. She blushed in the dark to recall their shy and awkward kiss in the station. It hadn't been a real marriage, theirs. Only a couple of "I do's," and "I will's," and a sentence or two repeated after a minister—a stranger to them both. In the brilliant light of her new love, she saw her marriage to Nathaniel Cawthorne revealed as a mere bugaboo without substantial form—something you could stick your hand through, it was so unreal. She would write to the stranger-sailor and ask for her release. She could now. Heaven, unasked, unsought, had sent her an excuse. She had remained as honestly true as she knew how, to her vows to him. She hadn't as much as even conjectured a way of escape; and suddenly, unexpectedly, this new love had descended upon her like a deluge from the clouds. There would be legal things about her marriage certificate that would have to be performed probably. She winced a little in the dark at the thought of that, for divorce had always meant disgrace to Reba. She had always looked upon it askance, like every one else in Ridgefield.

"But that was narrow and provincial," she told herself now. "I'm glad I'm out from under the yoke of Ridgefield notions!"

Just what legal steps to be taken in regard to her marriage would be necessary, Reba wasn't sure, but Chadwick Booth would know. Of course she meant