The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,7
could this great disaster have befallen them both? Carter! Her matchless lover! This girl’s lover, too! How could this thing be?
“No,” she said, very white and still, her voice almost toneless and unsteady. “I never took him away from you. I never knew there was such a person as you!”
“Well, you took him!” sobbed the other girl, “and there’s nothing left for me but to kill myself!” and another great sob burst forth.
“Nonsense!” said Sherrill sharply. “Don’t talk that way! That’s terrible. You don’t get anywhere talking like that! Hush! Somebody will hear you! We’ve got to be sensible and think what to do!”
“Do?” said Arla, dropping her hands from her face and flashing a look of scorn at the girl in bridal array. “What is there to do? Oh, perhaps you mean how you can get rid of me the easiest way? I don’t see why I should make it easy for you I’m sure, but I suppose I will. I’ll go away and not make any more trouble of course. I suppose I knew that when I came, but I had to come! Oh!”—and she gave another deep sob and turned her head away for an instant, then back to finish her sentence—“and you will go out to the church to marry him. It is easy enough for you to say ‘hush’ when you are going to marry him!”
“Marry him!” said Sherrill, sudden horror in her voice. “I could never marry him after this! Could you?”
“Oh yes,” said the girl in a quivering, hopeless voice. “I’d marry him if I got the chance! You can’t love him the way I do or you would, too. I’d marry him if I had to go through hell to do it!”
Sherrill quivered at the words. She was watching this other girl, thinking fast, and sudden determination came into her face.
“Then you shall!” she said in a low clear voice of determination. “You may get taken at your word. You may have to go through hell for it. But I won’t be responsible for that. If you feel that way about it, you shall marry him!”
The other girl looked up with frightened eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you shall marry him! Now! Tonight!” “But how could I?” she asked dully. “That would be impossible.”
“No, it is not impossible. Come! Quick. We have got to work fast! Listen! There comes somebody to the door. Come with me! Don’t make a sound!”
Sherrill snapped the light off and, grasping the gloved hand of the girl, she pulled her after her through the dimly lighted middle rooms and inside her own door, which she swiftly closed behind her, sliding the bolt.
“Now!” she said, drawing a breath of relief. “We’ve got to work like lightning! Take off your gloves and hat and dress just as fast as you can!”
Sherrill’s hands were busy with the fastening of her veil. Carefully she searched out the hairpins that held it and lifted it off, laying it in a great billow upon the bed, her hands at once searching for the fastening of her own bridal gown.
“But what are you going to do?” asked the other girl staring at her wildly, though she began automatically to pull off her long gloves.
“I’m going to put these things on you,” said Sherrill, pulling off her dress over her head frantically. “Hurry, won’t you? The car is probably out there waiting now. They’ll begin to get suspicious if we are a long time. Take off your hat quick! And your dress! Will it just pull over your head? Hurry, I tell you! What kind of stockings have you got on? Tan ones? That won’t do. Here, I’ve got another pair of silver ones in the drawer. I always have two pairs in case of a run. Sit down there, and peel yours off quick! I wonder if my shoes will fit you. You’ll have to try them anyway, for we couldn’t get any others!”
Sherrill kicked her silver shoes off and groped in the closet, bringing out an old pair of black satin ones and stepping into them hurriedly. The jeweled buckles glinted wickedly.
Her mind was working rapidly now. She dashed to her suitcase and rooted out a certain green taffeta evening gown, a recent purchase, one that she had especially liked and had planned to take with her, in case anything should delay her trunk. She dropped it over her own head, pulling it down with hurried hands and a bitter thought of