"How pale you are this morning, my child," said Mr. Ives to his
daughter.
"It is nothing. I have had a feverish night; the story of the fate of my
poor friend haunted me," she answered. She could not eat, the cold had
chilled her blood, and now and then she shivered painfully.
Betty sought her opportunity in spite of her bodily discomforts, and
fondly caressing her father's hands she knelt down by his chair.
"Father," she said. "Dear father, you know that very soon I am going to
leave you, to be married to my own true love. Our wedding-day is fixed,
but I dare say he will not be back much before then. Do you think he
will? Oh no, probably not."
"Why, child, to be sure he will! He will be back in a few days at the
outside. Why, silly child, you will make a poor wife if you fret always
when your husband is from home."
"But I do not fret. I am perfectly satisfied. Listen, dear father: when
I am married and gone away with my dear love, you will look round you
and see only my empty place, no hand to hold yours, no voice to welcome
you, no music to cheer you, no child to love you."
"Betty," cried Mr. Ives with a sob, "why do you show me so dismal a
picture? It is bad enough already."
"I have a good reason, dear father," she said. "You see I am going so
soon. I should leave you with so much lighter a heart were Mary here to
take my place. She is kind and good, and true, and would love you
dearly."
Mr. Ives laughed a little.
"Mistress Mary is somewhat old to replace my daughter," he said.
"Then the more suited to be your wife."
Mr. Ives rose to his feet, and paced up and down the room. Suddenly he
stopped, and catching his daughter's hands, looked her full in the face.
"Would she have me, my Bet?" he said. "I may not be too old to wed, but
I am vastly too old to woo."
"She will have you, father," answered Betty. "And you will be quite
happy when I am gone."
So all was settled, and the elderly pair pledged to each other. The
banns were asked in church that their marriage might take place at once
when John Johnstone should take his bride away.
Days passed on, days lengthened into weeks, the wedding-day drew near,
and the bridegroom came not.
All Betty's high courage came back, the frost melted away, and the
country was open again, and once more she rode to hounds. Her colour was
high, her lips feverishly scarlet, her eyes large and brilliant. She
rode with the best, and came home with the brush at her pommel.
"Why do they look at me so strangely, father?" she asked. "Old Squire
Thornton, when he welcomed my return to the hunt, held my hand a whole
minute in his, and it was as if he were about to speak, for he swallowed
once or twice and then turned away. And Doctor Glebe would not speak to
me at all, and his face was set as a mask, though I saw that he was
watching me strangely all the time. Have I changed? Am I not the same
Betty I used to be?"
"The same, only a little thinner, my darling," her father answered, and
his eyes filled with tears.
He too had grown curiously sad of late, and followed his daughter with
wistful eyes.
"Father," she said one day, "to-morrow you know is our wedding-day. John
will come home, he must return to-night. I know that he will. I shall
wait up till the clock strikes twelve, but if he does not come (and of
course no one can tell how long business may detain him, can they?), one
thing, dear father: will you take Mary to church, even though I should
not be there, and marry her? She might wear my wedding-gown. To please
me, father, to please me?"
"Anything, anything to please you, my own child," said Mr. Ives in a
choked voice.
All day Betty wandered in the garden; they watched her wistfully, her
head was raised, always listening--listening to every sound.
The hours passed, evening came, the night fell. Betty had thrown wide
the casement. Her father and Mary Jones, crouching over the fire, had no
heart to speak to her, or warn her that the night was cold.
A wild stormy wind swayed the branches of the apple-trees, surging and
roaring as it rushed over the downs; the candles flickered and burned
low, and from them dropped those strange waxen off-shoots that old women
call winding-sheets.
At last the church-bell struck twelve, slowly, awfully.
Betty was listening still, her head raised, her finger on her lip.
"Hush!" she said, with a strange smile. "Do you hear the white horse's
hoofs?"
They listened. Distinctly on the ear came the sound of a horse
galloping, coming nearer and nearer, passing the door, on and on without
pause, the sound of the hoofs growing faint and fainter till lost in the
far distance.
Betty held out her arms. "Mary!" she said. "Mary!" Her voice was a
strange harsh whisper, out of which all tone had passed. "Mary, he
gallops away."