little church on the cliff. His heart beat thick [165]and fast; he himself began to feel as if he were living in a dream. He could not realise that the time had come when he was to call Monica his own. [165] Lady Diana and Mrs. Pendrill were there, and a friend of his own, young Lord Haddon, who had accompanied him from town the previous day, to play the part of best man at the ceremony. There was a little rustle and little stir outside, and then Monica entered, leaning on Tom Pendrill’s arm, and, without once lifting her eyes, walked steadily up the church, till she stood beside Randolph. Never, perhaps, had she looked more lovely, yet never, perhaps, more remote and unapproachable, than when she stood before the altar in her bridal robes, to pledge herself for better for worse to the [166]man who loved her, till death should them part. [166] He looked at her with a strange pang and aching at heart; but the moment was not one when hesitation or drawing back was possible. In a few more minutes Monica and Randolph Trevlyn were made man and wife. [167] [167] CHAPTER THE NINTH. MARRIED. “Married! Married! Married!” The monstrous vibrating throb of the express train seemed ceaselessly repeating that one word. The sound of it was beaten in upon Monica’s brain as with hot hammers, and yet she did not feel as if she understood what it meant, or realised what happened to her. One thing only was clear to her; that she had been torn away from Trevlyn, from her father, who, though pronounced convalescent, was still in a very precarious state; from Arthur, who after the anxiety and excitement of [168]the past days, was prostrated by a sharp attack of illness; from everything and everybody she held most dear; and cast as it were upon the mercy of a comparative stranger, who did not seem the less strange to her, because he had the right to call himself her husband. [168] What had happened during the three days that had passed since Monica had stood beside Randolph in the little cliff church, and had pledged herself to him for better or worse? She herself could not have said, but the facts can be summed up in a few words.
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