CHAPTER XIII.

ONE RASH STEP.

Ruth Jessup hurried into the house, ran breathlessly to her chamber in the loft, and changed the coquettish dress, which gave such picturesque brightness to her beauty, for one of mingled gray and black. Not a tinge of warm color was there to betray her identity. Her small bonnet was covered by a veil so thick that no one could clearly distinguish the features underneath. In truth, her very air seemed changed, for graceful ease had given place to a timid, hesitating movement, that was entirely at variance with her character.

She came down-stairs hurriedly, and rushed through the little parlor, as if afraid that the very walls might cry out against the act she meditated.

Ruth avoided the great avenues and the lodge-gate, but hurried by the most remote paths, through the deepest shades of the park, until one brought her to a side-gate in the wall, which she opened with a key, and let herself out into the highway. There she stood, for some minutes, with her hand on the latch, hesitating, in this supreme moment of her life, as if she stood upon a precipice, and, looking into its depths, recoiled with shuddering.

It is possible that the girl might have returned even then, for a pang of dread had seized upon her; but, while she stood hesitating, a noise in the highway made her leap back from the gate with a force that closed it against her, and she stood outside, trembling from head to foot; for, coming down the highway in a cloud of dust, she saw a dog-cart, in which was Walton Hurst and a groom, driving rapidly, as if in haste to meet some train. The young man gave her one encouraging glance as he swept by; the next moment the dog-cart had turned a curve of the road, and was out of sight.

Ruth felt now that her last chance of retreat was cut off. With a feeling of something like desperation she left the gate, and walked swiftly up the road. There was no sense of fatigue in this young girl. In her wild excitement, she could have walked miles on miles without being conscious of the distance. She did, in fact, walk on and on, keeping well out of sight, till she came to a little depot, some three miles from "Norston's Rest." There she diverged from her path, and, entering the building, sat down in a remote corner, and waited, with a feeling of nervous dread, that made her start and quiver as each person entered the room.

At last the train came up, creating some bustle and confusion, though only a few passengers were in waiting. Under cover of this excitement, Ruth took her seat in a carriage, and was shut in with a click of the latch which struck upon the poor girl's heart, as if some fatal turn of a key had locked her in with an irretrievable fate.

The train rushed on with a swiftness and force that almost took away the girl's breath. It seemed to her as if she had been caught up and hurled forward to her destiny with a force no human will could resist. Then she grew desperate. The rush of the engine seemed too slow for the wild desire that succeeded to her irresolution. Yet it was not twenty minutes before the train stopped again, and, looking through the window, Ruth saw her lover leap from the platform and enter the next carriage to her own.

Had he seen her? Did the lightning glance cast that way give him a glimpse of her face looking so eagerly through the glass? At any rate, he was in the same train with her, and once more they were hurled forward at lightning speed, until sixty miles lay between them and the mansion they had left.

Once more the train stopped. This time a hand whiter than that of the guard, was reached through the door, and a face that made her heart leap with a panic of joy and fear, looked into hers. She scarcely touched this proffered hand, but flitted out to the platform, like a bird let loose in a strange place. This was a way-side station, and it happened that no person except those two left the train at this particular point. Still they parted like chance passengers, and there was no one to observe the few rapid words that passed between them in the small reception-room.

When the train was out of sight, and all the bustle attendant on its arrival had sunk into silence, these two young persons entered a carriage that stood waiting, and drove swiftly toward a small town, clouded with the smoke of factories, that lay in the distance. Through the streets of this town, and into another, still more remote, they drove, and at last drew up in a small village, to which the spire of a single church gave something of picturesque dignity.

To the door of this church the carriage went, after avoiding the inhabitable portion of the village by taking a cross-road, which led through a neighboring moor. Into the low-browed entrance Walton Hurst led the girl. The church was dim, and so damp that it struck a chill through the young creature as she approached the altar, where a man, in sacred vestments, stood with an open book in his hand, prepared for a solemn ceremony.

Two or three persons sauntered up to the church-door, attracted by the unusual presence of a carriage in that remote place, and some, more curious than the rest, came inside, and drew, open-mouthed, toward the altar, while the marriage ceremony was being performed.

When the bride turned from the altar, shivering and pale with intense excitement, two or three of these persons secured a full view of her face, and never forgot it afterward; for anything more darkly, richly beautiful than her features had never met their eyes.

Ruth was indeed lovely in this supreme moment of her life. The pallor of concentrated emotion gave depth and almost startling brilliancy to those great eyes, bright as stars, and soft as velvet, which were for one moment turned upon them. All else might have been forgotten in after years; but that one glance was burnt like enamel on more than one memory when Walton Hurst's marriage was made known to the world.

The vestry was dark and damp when they entered it, followed by a grim old clerk, and at a more respectful distance after them came three or four of the villagers, who only saw the shadowy picture of a man and woman bending over a huge book--the one writing his name with a bold dash of the hand, the other trembling so violently that for a moment she was compelled to lay the pen down, while she looked into her husband's face with a pathetic plea for patience with her weakness.

But the names were written at last, and the young couple left the church in haste, as they had entered it--the bride with a bit of paper held tightly in her hand, the bridegroom looking happy and elated, as if he had conquered some enemy.

As they drove away, two or three of the villagers, who had been drawn into the church, turned back from the porch, and stole into the vestry where the clerk stood by his open register, examining a piece of gold that had been thrust into his hand, with a look of greedy unbelief.

The clerk was saying,

"See, neighbor Knox, it is gold--pure gold. Did any one ever see the like? There is the face of Her Majesty, plain as the sun in yon sky. Oh, if a few more such rare windfalls would but come this way, my place would be worth having."

The sight of this gold only whetted the villagers' curiosity to fresh vigor. They became eager to know what great man it was who had come among them, with such shadow-like stillness, leaving only golden traces of his presence in the church; for the clerk hinted, with glee, that the pastor had been rewarded fourfold for his share in the ceremony. Then one after another of these persons looked at the register. It chanced that the record was made on the top of a blank page; thus the two names were rendered more than usually conspicuous. This was the record:

WALTON HURST--RUTH JESSUP.