reathlessly,
"You understand, Phineas? And you will be careful, very careful? SHE
MUST NOT KNOW--not till tonight."

"One word. Guy is alive and well?"

"Yes--yes."

"Thank God!"

But Guy's father was gone while I spoke. Heavy as the news might
be--this ill news which had struck me with apprehension the moment I
saw Lord Ravenel--it was still endurable. I could not conjure up any
grief so bitter as the boy's dying.

Therefore, with a quietness that came naturally under the compulsion of
such a necessity as the present, I rejoined the rest, made my excuses,
and answered all objections. I watched the marriage-party leave the
house. A simple procession--the mother first, leaning on Edwin; then
Maud, Walter, and Lord Ravenel; John walked last, with Louise upon his
arm. Thus I saw them move up the garden, and through the beech-wood,
to the little church on the hill.

I then wrote the letter and sent it off. That done, I went back into
the study. Knowing nothing--able to guess nothing--a dull patience
came over me, the patience with which we often wait for unknown,
inevitable misfortunes. Sometimes I almost forgot Guy in my startled
remembrance of his father's look as he called me away, and sat down--or
rather dropped down--into his chair. Was it illness? yet he had not
complained; he hardly ever complained, and scarcely had a day's
sickness from year to year. And as I watched him and Louise up the
garden, I had noticed his free, firm gait, without the least sign of
unsteadiness or weakness. Besides, he was not one to keep any but a
necessary secret from those who loved him. He could not be seriously
ill, or we should have known it.

Thus I pondered, until I heard the church bells ring out merrily. The
marriage was over.

I was just in time to meet them at the front gates, which they
entered--our Edwin and his wife--through a living line of smiling
faces, treading upon a carpet of strewn flowers. Enderley would not be
defrauded of its welcome--all the village escorted the young couple in
triumph home. I have a misty recollection of how happy everybody
looked, how the sun was shining, and the bells ringing, and the people
cheering--a mingled phantasmagoria of sights and sounds, in which I
only saw one person distinctly,--John.

He waited while the young folk passed in--stood on the hall-steps--in a
few words thanked his people, and bade them to the general rejoicing.
They, uproarious, answered in l