"Stop all their tongues," said Mr. Carden. "Come back to Hillsborough a wife. I gave up my choice to yours once. Now give me my way. I am touched to the heart by this young man's devotion: he invites me to live with him when you are married. What other young fellow would show me so much mercy?"
"Does he?" said Grace. "I will try and reward him for that, and for speaking well of one who could not defend himself. But give me a little time."
Mr. Carden conveyed this to Coventry with delight, and told him he should only have another month or so to wait. Coventry received this at first with unmixed exultation, but by-and-by he began to feel superstitious. Matters were now drawing to such a point that Little might very well arrive before the wedding-day, and just before it. Perhaps Heaven had that punishment in store for him; the cup was to be in his very grasp, and then struck out of it.
Only a question of time! But what is every race? The space between winner and loser strikes the senses more obviously; but the race is just as much a question of time as of space. Buridan runs second for the Derby, defeated by a length. But give Buridan a start of one second, and he shall beat the winner--by two lengths.
Little now wrote from Chicago that every thing was going on favorably, and he believed it would end in a sale of the patent clip in the United States and Canada for fifty thousand dollars, but no royalty.
This letter was much shorter than any of the others; and, from that alone, his guilty reader could see that the writer intended to follow it in person almost immediately.
Coventry began almost to watch the sun in his course. When it was morning he wished it was evening, and when it was evening he wished it was morning.
Sometimes he half wondered to see how calmly the sun rose and set, and Nature pursued her course, whilst he writhed in the agony of suspense, and would gladly have given a year out of his life for a day.
At last, by Mr. Carden's influence, the wedding-day was fixed. But soon after this great triumph came another intercepted letter. He went to his room and his hands trembled violently as he opened it.
His eye soon fixed on this passage:
"I thought to be in New York by this time, and looking homeward; but I am detained by another piece of good-fortune, if any thing can be called good-fortune that keeps me a day from you. Oh, my dear Grace, I am dying to see your handwriting at new York, and then fly home and see your dear self, and never, never quit you more. I have been wonderfully lucky; I have made my fortune, our fortune. But it hardly pays me for losing the sight of you so many months. But what I was going to tell you is, that my method of forging large axes by machinery is wonderfully praised, and a great firm takes it up on fair terms. This firm has branches in various parts of the world, and, once my machines are in full work, Hillsborough will never forge another ax. Man can not suppress machinery; the world is too big. That bullet sent through Mr. Tyler's hat loses Great Britain a whole trade. I profit in money by their short-sighted violence, but I must pay the price; for this will keep me another week at Chicago, perhaps ten days. Then home I come, with lots of money to please your father, and an ocean of love for you, who don't care about the filthy dross; no more do I, except as the paving-stones on the road to you and heaven, my adored one."
The effect of this letter was prodigious. So fearful had been the suspense, so great was now the relief, that Coventry felt exultant, buoyant. He went down to the sea-side, and walked, light as air, by the sands, and his brain teemed with delightful schemes. Little would come to Hillsborough soon after the marriage, but what of that?
On the wedding-night he would be at Dover. Next day at Paris, on his way to Rome, Athens, Constantinople. The inevitable exposure should never reach his wife until he had so won her, soul and body, that she should adore him for the crimes he had committed to win her--he knew the female heart to be capable of that.
He came back from his walk another man, color in his cheek and fire in his eye.
He walked into the drawing-room, and found Mr. Raby, with his hat on, just leaving Grace, whose eyes showed signs of weeping.
"I wish you joy, sir," said Raby. "I am to have the honor of being at your wedding."
"It will add to my happiness, if possible," said Coventry.
To be as polite in deed as in word, he saw Mr. Raby into the fly.
"Curious creatures, these girls," said Raby, shrugging his shoulders.
"She was engaged to me long ago," said Coventry, parrying the blow.
"Ah! I forgot that. Still--well, well; I wish you joy."
He went off, and Coventry returned to Grace. She was seated by the window looking at the sea.
"What did godpapa say to you?"
"Oh, he congratulated me. He reminded me you and I were first engaged at his house."
"Did he tell you it is to be at Woodbine Villa?"
"What?"
"The wedding." And Grace blushed to the forehead at having to mention it.
"No, indeed, he did not mention any such thing, or I should have shown him how unadvisable--"
"You mistake me. It is I who wish to be married from my father's house by good old Dr. Fynes. He married my parents, and he christened me, and now he shall marry me."
"I approve that, of course, since you wish it; but, my own dearest Grace, Woodbine Villa is associated with so many painful memories--let me advise, let me earnestly entreat you, not to select it as the place to be married from. Dr. Fynes can be invited here."
"I have set my heart on it," said Grace. "Pray do not thwart me in it."
"I should be very sorry to thwart you in any thing. But, before you finally decide, pray let me try and convince your better judgment."