"It's sickening."
"Be brave," said Hamilton Beamish. "I know just how you feel. I, also,
am going through the torment of being parted from the one woman."
"Absolutely sickening! A clergyman, and not able to stand on a chair
without falling off!" A sudden, gruesome thought struck him. "Hamilton!
What's it a sign of when the clergyman falls off a chair and sprains
his ankle on the morning of the wedding?"
"How do you mean, what is it a sign of?"
"I mean, is it bad luck?"
"For the clergyman, undoubtedly."
"You don't think it means that anything is going to go wrong with the
wedding?"
"I have never heard of any such superstition. You must endeavour to
control these fancies, George. You are allowing yourself to get into a
thoroughly overwrought condition."
"Well, what sort of a condition do you expect a fellow to be in on his
wedding-morning, with clergymen falling off chairs wherever he looks?"
Hamilton smiled tolerantly.
"I suppose nerves are inevitable on such an occasion. I notice that
even Sigsbee H., who can scarcely consider himself a principal in
this affair, is thoroughly jumpy. He was walking on the lawn some
little time ago, and when I came up behind him and laid a hand on his
shoulder, he leaped like a startled roe. If Sigsbee H. Waddington
possessed a mind, I would say that there was something on it. No doubt
he is brooding on the West again."
The sun was still shining brightly, but somehow the day seemed to
George to have grown overcast and chill. A grey foreboding had come
upon him.
"I wish this hadn't happened."
"Exactly what the clergyman said."
"It isn't fair that a delicate, highly-strung girl like Molly should be
upset like this at such a time."
"I think you exaggerate the effects of the occurrence on Molly. She
seemed to me to be bearing it with equanimity."
"She wasn't pale?"
"Not in the least."
"Or agitated?"
"She seemed quite her normal self."
"Thank God!" said George.
"In fact, the last thing she said to Ferris, as the car drove away,
was...."
"What?"
Hamilton Beamish had broken off. He was frowning.
"My memory is terrible. It is the effect, of course, of love. I have
just remembered...."
"What did Molly say?"
"I have forgotten. But I have just remembered what it was that I was
told to tell you as soon as you arrived. It is curious how often the
mention of a name will, as it were, strike a chord. I spoke of Ferris,
and it has just come back to me that Ferris gave me a message for you."
"Oh, darn Ferris!"
"He asked me, when I saw you, to say that a female of some kind was
calling you up on the telephone earlier in the morning. He told her
that you were at the inn, and advised her to get you there, but she
said it didn't matter, as she was coming down here immediately. She
said she had known you in East Gilead."
"Oh?" said George, indifferently.
"And her name, if I remember rightly, was Dubbs or Tubbs or Jubbs
or--no, I have it. My memory is better than I supposed. It was May
Stubbs. Does it convey anything to you?"