“And that no one should know poor Grizel had done this thing.  I admire you for that, Sandys.”

“But it has leaked out, you see,” Tommy said; “and they will all be admiring me for it at the wedding, and no doubt I shall be cocking my greetin’ eyes at them to note how much they are admiring.”

But when the wedding-day came he was not doing that.  While he and Grizel stood up before Mr. Dishart, in the doctor’s parlour, he was thinking of her only.  His eyes never left her, not even when he had to reply “I do.”  His hand pressed hers all the time.  He kept giving her reassuring little nods and smiles, and it was thus that he helped Grizel through.

Had Mr. Dishart understood what was in her mind he would not have married them.  To her it was no real marriage; she thought they were tricking the minister, so that she should be able to go home.  They had rehearsed the ceremony together many times, and oh, she was eager to make no mistake.

“If they were to find out!” she would say apprehensively, and then perhaps giggle at the slyness of it all.  Tommy had to make merry with her, as if it was one of his boyish plays.  If he was overcome with the pain of it, she sobbed at once and wrung her hands.

She was married in gray silk.  She had made the dress herself, as beautifully as all her things were made.  Tommy remembered how once, long ago, she had told him, as a most exquisite secret, that she had decided on gray silk.

Corp and Gavinia and Ailie and Aaron Latta were the only persons asked to the wedding, and when it was over, they said they never saw anyone stand up by a woman’s side looking so anxious to be her man; and I am sure that in this they did Tommy no more than justice.

It was a sad day to Elspeth.  Could she be expected to smile while her noble brother did this great deed of sacrifice?  But she bore up bravely, partly for his sake, partly for the sake of one unborn.

The ring was no plain hoop of gold; it was garnets all the way round.  She had seen it on Elspeth’s finger, and craved it so greedily that it became her wedding-ring.  And from the moment she had it she ceased to dislike Elspeth, and pitied her very much, as if she thought happiness went with the ring.  “Poor Alice!” she said when she saw Elspeth crying at the wedding, and having started to go away with Tommy, she came back to say again, “Poor, poor Alice!”

Corp flung an old shoe after them.

CHAPTER XXXII

TOMMY’S BEST WORK

And thus was begun a year and a half of as great devotion as remorseful man ever gave to woman.  When she was asleep and he could not write, his mind would sometimes roam after abandoned things; it sought them in the night as a savage beast steals forth for water to slake the thirst of many days.  But if she stirred in her sleep they were all dispelled; there was not a moment in that eighteen months when he was twenty yards from Grizel’s side.