He was standing before the mirror and,
glancing at himself, he said, half laughingly, half sadly:

"I am a pitiful-looking bridegroom to go with all that finery: I
should not think you would want me, Lucy."

"But I do," she answered, holding his hand and leading him to the
carriage, which took him to the church.

He had not intended going there as long as there was an excuse for
staying away, and he felt himself grow sick and faint when he stood
amid the Christmas decorations and remembered the last year when he
and Anna had fastened the wreaths upon the wall.

They were trimming the church very elaborately in honor of him and his
bride, and white artificial flowers, so natural that they could not be
detected, were mingled with scarlet leaves and placed among the mass
of green. The effect was very fine and Arthur tried to praise it, but
his face belied his words; and, after he was gone, the disappointed
girls declared that he acted more like a man about to be hung than one
so soon to be married.

It was very late that night when Lucy summoned Valencia to comb out
her long, thick curls, and Valencia was tired, and cross, and sleepy,
handling the brush so awkwardly and snarling her mistress's hair so
often that Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the
slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could no longer be
restrained; and, in amazement, which kept her silent, Lucy listened
while Valencia taunted her "with standing in Anna Ruthven's shoes,"
and told her all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and
the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia's anger quickly cooled,
and she trembled with fear when she saw how deathly white her mistress
grew at first and heard the loud beating of her heart, which seemed
trying to burst from its prison and fall bleeding at the feet of the
poor, wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered as she
motioned Valencia to stop and whispered:

"I am dying!"

She was not dying, but the fainting fit which ensued was longer and
more like death than that which had come upon Anna when she heard that
Arthur was lost. Twice they thought her heart had ceased to beat, and,
in an agony of remorse, Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as
her murderer, but giving no other explanation to those around her
than: "I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over
her wrapper, and she said that she was dying."

And that was all the family kne