Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/112

Rh anger by Eric, and as simply childish by Sarah's mother.

More than six months had since then elapsed, but no other letter had come, and Eric's hopes, which had been dashed down by the letter from Pahang, began to rise again. He perpetually assailed Sarah with an "if!" If Abel did not return, would she then marry him? If the 11th of April went by without Abel being in the port, would she give him over? If Abel had taken his fortune, and married another girl on the head of it, would she marry him, Eric, as soon as the truth were known? And so on in an endless variety of possibilities.

The power of the strong will and the determined purpose over the woman's weaker nature became in time manifest. Sarah began to lose her faith in Abel and to regard Eric as a possible husband; and a possible husband is in a woman's eye different from all other men. A new affection for him began to arise in her breast, and the daily familiarities of permitted courtship furthered the growing affection. Sarah began to regard Abel as rather a rock in the road of her life, and had it not been for her mother's constantly reminding her of the good fortune already laid by in the Bristol bank she would have tried to shut her eyes altogether to the fact of Abel's existence.

The 11th of April was Saturday, so that in order to have the marriage on that day it would be necessary that the bans should be called on Sunday, the 22nd of March. From the beginning of that month Eric kept perpetually on the subject of Abel's absence, and his outspoken opinion that the latter was either dead or married began to become a reality to the woman's mind. As the first half of the month wore on, Eric became more jubilant, and after church on the 15th he took Sarah for a walk to the Flagstaff Rock.

There he asserted himself strongly:

"I told Abel, and you too, that if he was not here to put up his bans in time for the eleventh, I would put up mine for the twelfth. Now the time has come when I mean to do it. He hasn't kept his word——"

Here Sarah struck in out of her weakness and indecision: "He hasn't broken it yet!"

Eric ground his teeth with anger. "If you mean to stick up for him," he said, as he smote his hands savagely on the flagstaff, which sent forth a shivering murmur, "well and good. I'll keep my part of the bargain. On Sunday I shall give notice of the bans, and you can deny them in the church if you will. If Abel is in Pencastle on the eleventh, he can have them canceled, and his own put up; but till then, I take my course, and wowoe [sic] to any one who stands in my way!"

With that he flung himself down the rocky pathway, and Sarah could not but admire his Viking strength and spirit, as crossing the hill, he strode away along the cliffs toward Bude.

During the week no news was heard of Abel, and on Saturday Eric gave notice of the bans of marriage between himself and Sarah Trefusis. The clergyman would have remonstrated with him, for although nothing formal had been told to the neighbors, it had been understood since Abel's departure that on his return he was to marry Sarah; but Eric would not discuss the question.

"It is a painful subject, sir," he said with a firmness which the parson, who was a very young man, could not but be swayed by. "Surely there is nothing against Sarah or me. Why should there be any bones made about the matter?"

The parson said no more, and on the next day he read out the bans for the first time amidst an audible buzz from the