she had been in for fear
"Cousin Neilson" would take her away and she would never see him again.

With a rising tide of tenderness for her and rage against their cousin,
he kissed the trouble from her eyes.

"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he murmured, "He shall never take you
from me. I have come back to marry you!"

"To marry her?" exclaimed Mrs. Clemm. "At once, do you mean?"

"At once! Today or tomorrow--for I must be getting back to Richmond as
soon as possible. Don't you see, Muddie, that this is just a plot of
Neilson's to separate us? He never cared for me--he loves Virginia and
is determined I shall not have her. But we'll outwit him! We'll be
married at once. We'll have to keep it secret at first--until I am able
to provide a home for my little wife and our dear mother in Richmond,
but I will go away with peace of mind and leave her in peace of mind,
for once she is mine only death can come between us. We will keep it
secret dear," he added, with his lips on the dusky hair of the little
maid who was still held fast in his arms. "We will keep it secret, but
if Neilson Poe becomes troublesome you will only have to show him your
marriage certificate."

Virginia joyfully agreed to this plan, while the widow, finding
opposition useless, finally consented too--and the impetuous lover was
off post-haste for a license.

It was a unique little wedding which took place next day in Christ
Church, when a beautiful, dreamy looking youth, with intellectual brow
and classic profile and a beautiful, dreamy-looking maid, half his age,
plighted their troth. The only attendant was Mother Clemm in her
habitual plain black dress and widow's cap, with floating cap-strings,
sheer and snowy white. No music, no flowers, no witnesses even, save the
widowed mother and the aged sexton who was bound over to strict secrecy.

But in the dim, still, empty church the beautiful words of the old, old
rite seemed to this strange pair of lovers to take on new solemnity as
they fell from the lips of the white robed priest and sank deep into
their young hearts, filling and thrilling them with fresh hope and faith
and love and high resolve.

CHAPTER XXII.

In the following spring Edgar Poe and Virginia Clemm were, strange as it
may seem, principals in another wedding. The months intervening between
the two ceremonies had been teeming with interest to them both--filled
with work and with happiness just short of that perfect
satisfac