d. This is no hard condition on this bitter night.'

'If you had proposed it in a filial manner, Edith,' whined her mother,
'perhaps not; very likely not. But such extremely cutting words--'

'They are past and at an end between us now,' said Edith. 'Take your own
way, mother; share as you please in what you have gained; spend, enjoy,
make much of it; and be as happy as you will. The object of our lives
is won. Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are closed upon the
past from this hour. I forgive you your part in to-morrow's wickedness.
May God forgive my own!'

Without a tremor in her voice, or frame, and passing onward with a foot
that set itself upon the neck of every soft emotion, she bade her mother
good-night, and repaired to her own room.

But not to rest; for there was no rest in the tumult of her agitation
when alone to and fro, and to and fro, and to and fro again, five
hundred times, among the splendid preparations for her adornment on the
morrow; with her dark hair shaken down, her dark eyes flashing with
a raging light, her broad white bosom red with the cruel grasp of the
relentless hand with which she spurned it from her, pacing up and down
with an averted head, as if she would avoid the sight of her own fair
person, and divorce herself from its companionship. Thus, In the dead
time of the night before her bridal, Edith Granger wrestled with her
unquiet spirit, tearless, friendless, silent, proud, and uncomplaining.

At length it happened that she touched the open door which led into the
room where Florence lay.

She started, stopped, and looked in.

A light was burning there, and showed her Florence in her bloom of
innocence and beauty, fast asleep. Edith held her breath, and felt
herself drawn on towards her.

Drawn nearer, nearer, nearer yet; at last, drawn so near, that stooping
down, she pressed her lips to the gentle hand that lay outside the bed,
and put it softly to her neck. Its touch was like the prophet's rod of
old upon the rock. Her tears sprung forth beneath it, as she sunk upon
her knees, and laid her aching head and streaming hair upon the pillow
by its side.

Thus Edith Granger passed the night before her bridal. Thus the sun
found her on her bridal morning.

CHAPTER 31. The Wedding

Dawn with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the church
beneath which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and looks
in at the windows. It is cold and dark. Nig