as she
dressed herself mechanically in her one smart silk gown, and stood in a
kind of waking trance before the quaint old-fashioned looking-glass which
reflected her pale hopeless face. She had no girlish companion to assist
in that dismal toilet. Long ago there had been promises exchanged between
Ellen Carley and her chosen friend, the daughter of a miller who lived a
little way on the other side of Crosber, to the effect that whichever was
first to marry should call upon the other to perform the office of
bridesmaid; and Sarah Peters, the miller's daughter, was still single and
eligible for the function. But there was to be no bridesmaid at this
blighted wedding. Ellen had pleaded urgently that things might be
arranged as quietly as possible; and the master of Wyncomb, who hated
spending money, and who apprehended that the expenses of any festivity
would in all probability fall upon his own shoulders, was very well
pleased to assent to this request of his betrothed.

"Quite right, Nell," he said; "we don't want any foolish fuss, or a pack
of people making themselves drunk at our expense. You and your father can
come quietly to Crosber church, and Mrs. Tadman and me will meet you
there, and the thing's done. The marriage wouldn't be any the tighter if
we had a hundred people looking on, and the Bishop of Winchester to read
the service."

It was arranged in this manner, therefore; and on that pleasant spring
morning William Carley and his daughter walked to the quiet village where
Gilbert Fenton had discovered the secret of Marian's retreat. The face
under the bride's little straw bonnet was deadly pale, and the features
had a rigid look that was new to them. The bailiff glanced at his
daughter in a furtive way every now and then, with an uneasy sense of
this strange look in her face. Even in his brute nature there were some
faint twinges of compunction, now that the deed he had been so eager to
compass was well-nigh done--some vague consciousness that he had been a
hard and cruel father.

"And yet it's all for her own good," he told himself, "quite as much as
for mine. Better to marry a rich man than a pauper any day; and to take a
dislike to a man's age or a man's looks is nothing but a girl's nonsense.
The best husband is the one that can keep his wife best; and if I hadn't
forced on this business, she'd have taken up with lawyer Randall's son,
who's no better than a beggar, and a pretty life she'd have had of it