The Widowed Bride — page 196: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WIDOWED BRIDE 187 CHAPTER XX VI. MARRIED. Alice Percival looked very lovely in her white dress and blue-ribboned hat, as they drove along the wild and secluded road leading to Cresslyn Church, the next day. Ernest thought she had never been half so beautiful, and the deter- mination to call her his own waxed stronger in his heart with every moment. ‘‘What makes you so silent, Ernest?’ she ventured to ask, after one or two wistful glances at his absorbed face, when they had left Tregarvan Rectory behind them by a mile or two. ‘‘T was thinking how best to tell you what I have to im- part this morning,” he said, his grave lips softening into a smile. She grew a little pale. ‘Ts it bad news, Ernest?” “T don’t regard it in that light, myself,” he answered. ‘Then I am not afraid to hear it.” ‘‘Shall I speak on?” he asked, and she replied: “Yes,” : “Well, then, it is this, Alice—we must be married this morning!” “Ernest!” “I knew you would be surprised, my little one, but since you have promised to give yourself to me, what difference » can it be whether it is a few days sooner or later. You are willing to trust me, Alice?” ‘©Yes—oh yes, Ernest, but-—it is so sudden! I have not written to Rena—I have not told Mrs. Eskett, who has been so very, very kind to me ” All that can be done afterward, my dearest; but circum- stances have occurred which renders my stay at Tregarvan exceedingly uncertain, and | must make sure of my precious prize at once. Listen, my darling. You, who have lived in seclusion all your days, can form no idea of the plots, and plans, and schemes which form part of the real world. I am simple Ernest Evelyn, a captain in the —th Dragoons, with nothing but my pay to live on, and my mother, who is Ecomicbooks €oO m