“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 satisfaction—­that completeness—­that unattainable which it is part of being a mortal with an immortal mind and soul to be continually striving after, and missing, and will be until the half-light of this world is merged into the light ineffable of the one to come.

The Dreamer had returned from his brief visit to Baltimore a new man.  The blue devils were gone.  The heart and mind which they had made their dwelling-place were swept clean of every vestige of them and were filled to overflowing with a sweet and rare presence—­the presence of her who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him; for he felt that her spirit was with him at every moment of the day, though her fair body was other whither.  The consciousness of the secret he carried in his heart flooded his nature with sunshine.  Because of it he carried