第158章 CHAPTER XXXV(4)

Literally,mind!And post it at once,before we return from church."Here the mother's call was heard."John,are you coming?""In a moment,love,"for her hand was on the door outside;but her husband held the other handle fast.He then went on,breathlessly,"You understand,Phineas?And you will be careful,very careful?

SHE MUST NOT KNOW--not till tonight."

"One word.Guy is alive and well?"

"Yes--yes."

"Thank God!"

But Guy's father was gone while I spoke.Heavy as the news might be--this ill news which had struck me with apprehension the moment I saw Lord Ravenel--it was still endurable.I could not conjure up any grief so bitter as the boy's dying.

Therefore,with a quietness that came naturally under the compulsion of such a necessity as the present,I rejoined the rest,made my excuses,and answered all objections.I watched the marriage-party leave the house.A simple procession--the mother first,leaning on Edwin;then Maud,Walter,and Lord Ravenel;John walked last,with Louise upon his arm.Thus I saw them move up the garden,and through the beech-wood,to the little church on the hill.

I then wrote the letter and sent it off.That done,I went back into the study.Knowing nothing--able to guess nothing--a dull patience came over me,the patience with which we often wait for unknown,inevitable misfortunes.Sometimes I almost forgot Guy in my startled remembrance of his father's look as he called me away,and sat down--or rather dropped down--into his chair.Was it illness?yet he had not complained;he hardly ever complained,and scarcely had a day's sickness from year to year.And as I watched him and Louise up the garden,I had noticed his free,firm gait,without the least sign of unsteadiness or weakness.Besides,he was not one to keep any but a necessary secret from those who loved him.He could not be seriously ill,or we should have known it.

Thus I pondered,until I heard the church bells ring out merrily.

The marriage was over.

I was just in time to meet them at the front gates,which they entered--our Edwin and his wife--through a living line of smiling faces,treading upon a carpet of strewn flowers.Enderley would not be defrauded of its welcome--all the village escorted the young couple in triumph home.I have a misty recollection of how happy everybody looked,how the sun was shining,and the bells ringing,and the people cheering--a mingled phantasmagoria of sights and sounds,in which I only saw one person distinctly,--John.

He waited while the young folk passed in--stood on the hall-steps--in a few words thanked his people,and bade them to the general rejoicing.They,uproarious,answered in loud hurrahs,and one energetic voice cried out:

"One cheer more for Master Guy!"

Guy's mother turned delighted--her eyes shining with proud tears.

"John--thank them;tell them that Guy will thank them himself to-morrow."The master thanked them,but either he did not explain--or the honest rude voices drowned all mention of the latter fact--that Guy would be home to-morrow.

All this while,and at the marriage-breakfast likewise,Mr.Halifax kept the same calm demeanour.Once only,when the rest were all gathered round the bride and bridegroom,he said to me:

"Phineas,is it done?"

"What is done?"asked Ursula,suddenly passing.

"A letter I asked him to write for me this morning."Now I had all my life been proud of John's face--that it was a safe face to trust in--that it could not,or if it could,it would not,boast that stony calm under which some men are so proud of disguising themselves and their emotions from those nearest and dearest to them.

If he were sad,we knew it;if he were happy,we knew it too.It was his principle,that nothing but the strongest motive should make a man stoop to even the smallest hypocrisy.