The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,14
night at the rehearsal that they had joked over it?
“Therefore if any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now declare it, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”
Her eyes were fastened on Aunt Pat in terror! What if Aunt Pat should arise and say she knew a just cause! Oh, why had she sent that note down so soon? If she could only recall it!
But Aunt Pat was sitting serenely with the note in her hand, reading it, and a look of satisfaction was on her lips, the kind a nice house cat might wear when she had just successfully evaded detection in licking the creamy frosting from a huge cake. Actually, Aunt Pat was looking up with a smile on her strong old face and a twinkle in her bright old eyes. It was almost as if she were pleased! The young man in the blue serge who had delivered the note was nowhere in sight, and yet she couldn’t remember seeing him slip out again, though the white ribbon was swaying a little as if it had recently been stirred.
That deathly stillness settled down over the audience, an audible stillness, even above the voice of the organ undertone; and Sherrill, puzzling over Aunt Pat, turned fascinated eyes toward her former lover. How was he standing this challenge? Whichever girl he thought was standing beside him, surely he could not take this calmly. Oh, if she might only look in his face and see his innocence written there! Yet she knew that could never be!
But she was not prepared for the haggard look she saw on his face, a terror such as a criminal at bay might wear when about to face an angry mob who desired to hang him. The look in his eyes was awful! All their lively brilliancy gone! Only fear, uncertainty, a holding of the breath to listen! His hands were working nervously. She felt almost a contemptuous pity for him, and then a wrenching of the heart again. Her lover, to have come to such a place as that! Almost she groaned aloud, and looked toward the radiant bride, for radiant she really seemed to be, carrying out her part perfectly. Sherrill had felt she could do it. She was clever, and she had an overwhelming love!
And yet in spite of her horror over what was happening, somehow as she looked down there it seemed to be her own self that was standing there in that white satin gown and veil about to take sweet solemn vows upon her. What had she done to put her bright hopes out of her life forever! Oh, hadn’t she been too hasty? Might there not have been some other explanation than the only obvious one? Ought she perhaps to have gone in and confronted those two in each other’s arms?
Then suddenly the girl down there before the altar spoke, and her voice was clear and ringing. The great church full of people held their breath again to catch every syllable:
“I, Arla, take thee, Carter—”
Sherrill felt her breath coming in slow gasps, felt as if someone were stifling her. She strained her ears to hear, on through that long paragraph that she had learned so carefully by heart, her lips moving unconsciously to form the words before she heard them. And Arla was speaking them well, clearly, with a triumphant ring to them, like a call to the lover she had lost. Could he fail to understand and answer? Sherrill pressed her hands hard upon her aching heart and tried to take deep breaths to keep her senses from swimming off away from her.
Again she had a feeling as if that girl down there was herself; yet she was here looking on!
And now it was the bridegroom’s turn!
Sherrill closed her eyes and focused every sense upon the words. Would he respond? Would he do something, or would he let it go on? For now he surely knew!
His voice was low, husky; she could scarcely hear the words above the tender music that she herself had planned to accompany the vow they were plighting. Afterward she fancied it must have been by some fine inner sense rather than the hearing of her ears that she knew what he was saying, for he spoke like one who was afraid!
“I, Carter, take thee, Arla—!”
Ahh! He had said it. He knew now and he had accepted it! He was taking the words deliberately