University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING.

NEVER had a summer passed so slowly to Dora
Freeman as had the last, and yet now that it
was gone, it seemed to her scarcely more than a
week since the night she had said words from which resulted
all the busy preparations going on around her: the
bridal dresses packed away in heavy travelling trunks, for
they were going to Europe too,—the perfect happiness of
Johnnie, who, twenty times each day, kissed her tenderly,
whispering, “I am so glad that you are to be my
mother”—the noisy demonstrations of the younger ones,
and the great joy which beamed all over the Squire's honest
face each time he looked at his bride-elect and thought
how soon she would be his. Gradually the pressure
about Dora's heart and brain had loosened, and she did
not feel just as she had done when she first promised to
be Squire Russell's wife. She had accustomed herself
to the idea, until each thought did not bring a throb of
pain, while the excitement of getting ready, and the anticipated
tour to places she had never expected to see,
had afforded her some little satisfaction. She knew that

the world generally looked at her in wonder, while Bell
and Mattie totally disapproved, both framing some excuse
for not being present at the wedding. But as is
usually the case opposition only helped the matter by
making her more determined to do what she really believed
to be her duty. Besides this she was strengthened
and upheld by Johnnie, who was to be the companion of
her travels, and who always came between her and every
sharp, rough point, smoothing the latter down and making
all so bright and easy that she blessed him as her
good angel. Owing to his constant vigilance, his father
was not often very demonstrative of his affection, except
by looks and deeds done for her gratification, but still there
were times when, Johnnie being off guard, the father
acted the fond lover to the pale, shrinking girl, who, shutting
her teeth firmly together, suffered his caresses because
she must, but gave him back no answering token of
affection. Sometimes this quiet coldness troubled him,
particularly as Letitia and Jimmie both asked him at
different times why Auntie cried so much,—“did everybody
just before they were married? Did mother?”

After Jessie came, Dora felt a great deal better, for
Jessie made the future anything but gloomy. Jessie was
like a brilliant diamond, flashing and sparkling, and singing
and dancing and whistling until the house seemed like
a different place, and even Squire Russell wished he
could keep her there forever.

And now it was the day before the bridal. Every
trunk was packed, and everything was ready for the ceremony,
which was to occur at an early hour in the morning,
as the bridal pair were to take the first train for
New York. Jessie upon the grassy lawn was romping
with the children, and occasionally addressing some saucy,
teasing remark to the bridegroom-elect, who was smoking
his cigar demurely beneath the trees, and wishing Dora
would join them. But Dora was differently employed.
With the quiet which had suddenly fallen upon the household,
a terrible reaction had come to her, and as if waking
from some horrid nightmare, she began to realize her position,
to feel that only a few hours lay between herself
and a living death. Vaguely, too, she began to see how,
with every morning mail, there had come a shadowy hope
that something might be received from Dr. West, that in
some way he would yet save her from Squire Russell
But for months no news had been received of him by any
one, and now the last lingering hope had died, leaving
only a feeling of despair. She could not even write a
line in her journal, and once she thought to burn it, but
something stayed the act, and 'mid a rain of tears, she
laid it away, resolving never to open its lids again until
her heart ached less than it was aching now.

“I shall get over it, I know,” she moaned, as she
seated herself by the window. “If I thought I should
not, I would go to Squire Russell before the whole world,

and on my knees would beg to be released; but I am tired
now, and excited, and everything looks so dark,—even
my pleasant chamber is so close that I can scarcely
breathe. I wonder if the breeze from the lake would not
revive me. I'll try it,—I'll go there. I'll sit where
Richard and I once sat. I'll listen to the music of the
waves just as I listened then, and if this does not quiet
me, if the horror is still with me,—perhaps—”

There was a hard, terrible look in Dora's eyes as the
evil thought first flashed upon her, a look which grew
more and more desperate as she began to wonder how
deep the waters were near the shore, and if the verdict
would be “accidental drowning,” and if Dr. West would
care.

Alas for Dora! the tempter was whispering horrible
things to her, and she, poor, half-crazed girl, was listening to
him as she stole from the back door, and took her way across
the fields to where the waters of the lake lay sparkling in
the September sun now low in the western horizon.