“They will make you marry him, my darling.”

“No; that they can never do.”

“But I suffer in the fear.  I suffer a thousand deaths.  If you were only my wife, Katherine!”

She blushed divinely.  She was kneeling at his side; and she put her arms around his neck, and laid her face against his.  “Only your wife I will be.  That is what I desire also.”

“Now, Katherine?  This minute, darling?  Make me sure of the felicity you have promised.  You have my word of honour, that as Katherine Van Heemskirk I will not again ask you to come here.  But it is past my impatience to exist, and not see you. Katherine Hyde would have the right to come.”

“Oh, my love, my love!”

“See how I tremble, Katherine.  Life scarcely cares to inhabit a body so weak.  If you refuse me, I will let it go.  If you refuse me, I shall know that in your heart you expect to marry Neil Semple,—­the savage who has made me to suffer unspeakable agonies.”

“Never will I marry him, Richard,—­never, never.  My word is true.  You only I will marry.”

“Then now, now, Katharine.  Here is the ring.  Here is the special license from the governor; my aunt has made him to understand all.  The clergyman and the witnesses are waiting.  Some good fortune has dressed you in bridal beauty. Now, Katherine? Now, now!”

[Illustration:  Katherine knelt by Richard’s side]

She rose, and stood white and trembling by his dear side,—­speechless, also.  To her father and her mother her thoughts fled in a kind of loving terror.  But how could she resist the pleading of one whom she so tenderly loved, and to whom, in her maiden simplicity, she imagined herself to be so deeply bounden?  That very self-abnegation which forms so large a portion of a true affection urged her to compliance far more than love itself.  And when Richard ceased to speak, and only besought her with the unanswerable pathos of his evident suffering for her sake, she felt the argument to be irresistible.

“Well, my Katherine, will you pity me so far?”

“All you ask, my loved one, I will grant.”

“Angel of goodness! Now?”

“At your wish, Richard.”

He took her hand in a passion of joy and gratitude, and touched a small bell.  Immediately there was a sudden silence, and then a sudden movement, in the adjoining room.  The next moment a clergyman in canonical dress came toward them.  By his side was Colonel Gordon, and Mrs. Gordon and Captain Earle followed.  If Katherine had then been sensible of any misgiving or repentant withdrawal, the influences surrounding her were irresistible.  But she had no distinct wish to resist them.  Indeed, Colonel Gordon said afterward to his wife, “he had never seen a bride look at once so lovely and so happy.”  The ceremony was full of solemnity, and of that deepest joy which dims the eyes with tears, even while it wreathes the lips with smiles.  During it, Katherine knelt by Richard’s side; and every eye was fixed upon him, for he was almost fainting with the fatigue of his emotions; and it was with fast-receding consciousness that he whispered rapturously at its close, “My wife, my wife!”