The Beloved Stranger

Chapter 4




Gemmie gave Sherrill a frightened scrutinizing glance, took the old lady’s wrap and scarf, and fled, casting another worried, puzzled look behind her.

Sherrill took her aunt’s arm. The old lady was smiling affably, but there was an inscrutable look about her. Sherrill couldn’t tell whether it held disapproval or not. It was a mask—she could see that.

“What’s her name? Who is she?” demanded the old lady out of the side of her mouth, without moving her lips or disturbing her smile. She was steering Sherrill straight toward the bridal bower. Sherrill had to speak quickly, keeping her own lips in a smile that she was far from feeling.

“She’s his secretary, Arla Prentiss. He’s known her for years.”

“Hmm! The puppy!” grunted the old lady under her smile, and then raising her voice a little, “Come, let’s get this line in order! Where’s this bride and groom? Mrs. McArthur, Mr. McArthur—” Her voice was smooth, even, jovial and yet frigid, if such a combination can be imagined. Just as if she had not been calling the groom “Carter” for the past six weeks!

The bride and groom swung around to face her, the bride with a heightened color and a quick lifting of her chin as of one who expects a rebuff, the groom with every bit of color drained from his handsome face, and points of steel in his sulky eyes.

“I’m sure I hope you’ll both be very happy,” said Aunt Pat with a grimly humorous twist of her smile, implying perhaps that they didn’t deserve to be, and then with just a tinge of the Catherwood haughtiness, she took her place in the line as had been arranged.

Now had come the most trying moment for Sherrill, the one spot in the program that she hadn’t been able to think out ahead. It was as if she had blindly shut her eyes to the necessity of speaking to these two, unable to prepare the right words of formal greeting, unable to school her expression. And here she was facing them with that silly smile upon her lips and nothing in her heart to say but horror at the situation, which such a brief time ago had been so different!

And then, just as a strange constriction came into her throat to stop any words she might try to form with her cold dumb lips, and her smile seemed to her to be fading out across the room and getting hopelessly away from her forever, she felt a touch upon her arm, and there miraculously was Copeland, meticulously arrayed in evening garb, a cheery grin upon his face and merry words upon his lips: “Is this where you want me to be, Sherrill?”

The ice melted from Sherrill’s heart, her frightened throat relaxed, fear fled away, and the smile danced back into her eyes. He had come in just the nick of time. A warm feeling of gratitude flowed around her heart, and her voice returned with a delightful little lilt.

“Oh, is that you, Gray? How did you manage to get back so soon? Yes, this is just where I want you. Let me introduce you to the bride. Mrs. McArthur, my friend Mr. Copeland of Chicago. Mr. McArthur, Graham.”

Arla eyed the two keenly.

“Were you old schoolmates?” she asked the stranger brightly. “Carter and I went to school together from kindergarten up through senior high.”

“Well, not exactly schoolmates,” answered Copeland with an amused glance at Sherrill, “but we’re pretty good friends, aren’t we, Sherrill?” He cast a look of deep admiration and understanding toward the girl in green, and she answered with a glowing look.

“I should say!” She rippled a little laugh. “But come, Graham, they’re all arriving in a bunch, and you’ve got to meet the bridesmaids and ushers. Here, come over to Aunt Pat first!” and they swung away from the astounded bridal couple with formal smiles.

“Aunt Pat, I want you to know Mr. Graham Copeland of Chicago. He’s been a really wonderful friend to me. She’s Miss Catherwood, Gray. I’ve told you about her.”

“And why haven’t I been told about him before?” asked Aunt Pat as she took the young man’s hand and gave him a keen, quick, friendly look. Then, as her old eyes twinkled, “Oh, I have met him before, haven’t I? You had a blue coat on when I saw you last!” and her lips twisted into what would have been called a grin if she had been a few years younger.

“You’re one of the conspirators in this practical joke we’re playing, I suppose?” and her eyes searched his again.

“I trust I’m a harmless one, at least,” he said gracefully.

And then there came a sudden influx of bridesmaids preening their feathers and chattering like a lot of magpies.

They gushed into the room and seemed to fill it with their light and color and jubilant noise.

“Sherrill Cameron! Whatever did you put over on us?”

“Oh, Sherrill, you fraud! All these weeks and we thinking you were the bride!”

“What was the idea, Sherrill? Did you expect us to fall over in a faint when we saw another bride?”

“But we all thought it was you for the longest time!”

“I didn’t!” said Linda. “I knew when she got out of her car that there was something different about her!”

“Shh!”

Into the midst of the bevy of voices came Sherrill’s clear, controlled one, sweet, almost merry, though Aunt Pat turned a keen ear and a keen eye on her and knew she was under great strain: “Girls! Girls! For pity’s sake! Hush with your questions! Come and meet the bride, and then get into the receiving line quick! Don’t you see the guests are beginning to arrive?”

The girls turned dizzily about as Sherrill, with a smile almost like her own natural one, approached the bride: “Arla—” The name slipped off her tongue glibly, for somehow with Aunt Pat and Graham Copeland in the background she felt more at her ease. “Arla—” The bride turned in quick astonishment to hear herself addressed so familiarly. “Let me introduce your bridesmaids. This is Linda Winters, and Doris Graeme—”

She went on down the row, speaking their names with more and more confidence, and suddenly the best man, who had been on some errand of his office, loomed frowning beside her.

“And oh, here’s the best man! Carter, you’ll have to make the rest of the introductions. I simply must get these girls into place! Here come all the ushers, too! I’ll leave you to introduce them to your wife!” She said it crisply and moved away to make room for them, pushing the laughing bridesmaids before her and arranging them, with room for the ushers between, though everyone knew as well as she did where they ought to stand, having rehearsed it only the night before.

Then Sherrill slid behind them back to her place by Aunt Pat and the stranger, a place that had not been rehearsed the night before.

It was a hard place, a trying place, the worst place she could have been. She knew that when she chose it. But she had to face the music, and knew it was better to do it merrily at the head of the line than skulking at the foot where there would be plenty of time for explanation and questions.

So as the crowd of guests surged into the big lovely room, filled with curiosity and excitement, and ready to pull any secret one might have from the air and waft it to the world, it was Sherrill who stood at the head of the line in her lettuce-green taffeta, the little frock she had bought as a whimsy at the last minute, her second-best silver shoes, and the gorgeous Catherwood emeralds blazing on her neck and arms and finger. She was wafting her great feather fan graciously, and by her side was a handsome stranger! Would wonders never cease? The guests stepped in, gave one eager avid glance, and hastened to the fray.

Aunt Pat was next to the stranger, smiling her cat-in-the-cream smile, with twinkles in her eyes and a grim look of satisfaction.

“You ought to be at the head of the line, Aunt Pat,” demurred Sherrill. “I really don’t belong in this line at all.”

“Stay where you are!” commanded the old lady. “This is your wedding, not mine. Run it the way you please. I’m only here to lend atmosphere.” She said it from one corner of her mouth, and she twinkled at the stranger. She was standing next to the bride and groom, but she hadn’t addressed two words to them since her congratulations. However, they were getting on fairly well with the best man and maid of honor on the other side, and the stage was set for the great oncoming crowd.

Mrs. Battersea with her ultramodern daughter-in-law in the wake headed the procession, with the Reamers, the Hayworths, and the Buells just behind. They represented the least intimate of the guests, the ones who would really be hard to satisfy. Sherrill, with a furtive glance up at the tall stranger by her side, aware of his kindly, reassuring grin, felt a sudden influx of power in herself to go through this ordeal. It helped, too, to realize that several others were having an ordeal also. It probably wasn’t just what this stranger would have chosen to do, to play his part in this strange pageant, and she was sure Aunt Pat hated it all, though she was entering into the scene with a zest as if she enjoyed it. Aunt Pat hated publicity like a serpent.

And there were the bride and groom. One could scarcely expect them to enjoy this performance. Sherrill cast them a furtive glance. The bride was a game little thing. She was holding her head high and conversing bravely with all those chattering bridesmaids, who kept surging out of line to get a word with her. And Carter, well, Carter had always been able to adjust himself to his surroundings pretty well, but there was a strained white look about him. Oh, whatever he might have felt for either of his prospective brides, it was scarcely likely that he was enjoying this reception. It was most probable that he would give all he possessed to have a nice hole open in the floor and let him and his Arla through out of sight.

So Sherrill drew a deep breath, summoned a smile, and greeted Mrs. Battersea, sweeping up in purple chiffon with orchids on her ample breast.

“Now, Sherrill, my dear,” said the playful lady, “what does this all mean? You’ve got to give us a full explanation of everything.”

“Why, it was just that we thought this would be a pleasant way to do things,” smiled Sherrill. “Don’t you think it was a real surprise? Mrs. Battersea, do let me introduce my friend Mr. Copeland of Chicago. Oh, Mrs. Reamer, I’m so glad you got well in time to come!”

Suddenly Sherrill felt a thrill of triumph. She was getting away with it! Actually she was! Mrs. Battersea had been not only held at bay but also entirely sidetracked by this new young man introduced into the picture. She closed her mouth on the question that had been just ready to pop out and fixed her eyes on Copeland, a new fatuous smile quickly adjusted, as she passed with avidity to the inquisition of this stranger. Here was she, the first in the line, and it was obviously up to her to get accurate information concerning him and convey it as rapidly as possible to the gathering assembly. Sherrill could see out of the corner of her eye this typical Battersea attitude, even as the guest put up her lorgnette to inspect the young man. She felt a pang of pity for her new friend. Did he realize what he was letting himself in for when he promised to stand by her through this? Oh, but what a help he was! How his very presence had changed the attitude that might have been, the attitude of pity for a cast-off bride! And, too, he had brought in an element of mystery, of speculation. She could see how avidly Mrs. Battersea was drinking in the possibilities as she approached.

But Sherrill drew another breath of relief. The young man by her side would be equal to it. She need not worry.

And there, too, was Aunt Pat! She would not let the first comer linger too long with the new lion of the occasion.

Even with the thought, she heard the woman’s first question and saw Aunt Pat instantly, capably, if grimly, take over the Battersea woman. Whether Aunt Pat was going to forgive Sherrill afterward or not for making such a mess of the beautiful stately wedding which she had financed, she would be loyal now and defend her own whether right or wrong. That was Aunt Pat.

Yes, those two could be depended upon.

And then came Mrs. Reamer, fairly bursting with curiosity, and Sherrill was able to smile and greet her with a gracious merriment that surprised herself, and then interrupt the second question with, “Oh, but you haven’t met my friend Mr. Copeland of Chicago yet. Graham, this is Mrs. Reamer, one of our nearest neighbors.”

The Hayworths and Buells were mercifully pressing forward, eager to get in their questions, and Sherrill thankfully handed over Mrs. Reamer to Copeland, who dealt with her merrily. So with a lighter heart and well-turned phrases she met the next onslaught, marveling that this terrible ordeal was really going forward so happily, and presently she began to feel the thrill that always comes sooner or later to one who is accomplishing a difficult task successfully.

She was strained, of course, like one who pilots a blimp through the unchartered skies for the first time perhaps, yet she knew that when she got back to earth and her nerves were less taut, there was bound to be a reaction. Just now the main thing was to keep sailing and not let anyone suspect how frightened and sick at heart she really was, how utterly humiliated and cast out she felt, with another bride standing there beside the man who was to have been her husband. And he smiling and shaking hands, and overall conducting himself as if he were quite satisfied. She stole a glance at him now and again between handshakes and introductions, and perceived that he did not appear greatly distraught. His assurance seemed to have returned to him; the whiteness was leaving his lips, and his eyes were no longer deep, smoldering, angry fires. He really seemed to be having a good time. Of course he, too, was playing a part, and there was no telling what his real feelings were. Equally of course he was caught in the tide of the hour and had to carry out his part or bolt and bear the consequences of publicity of which she had warned him. She remembered that he had always been a good actor.

But there was another actor in the line who utterly amazed her. Arla, the bride, filled her part graciously, with a little tilt triumphant to her pretty chin, a glint of pride in her big blue eyes, an air of being to the manor born that was wholly surprising. There she stood in borrowed bridal attire, beside a reluctant bridegroom, wearing another girl’s engagement ring, and a wedding ring that was not purchased for her, bearing another girl’s roses and lilies, standing under a bower that did not belong to her; and yet she was carrying it all off in the most delightfully natural way. To look at her, one would never suspect that an hour ago she had been pleading with her lover to run away with her and leave another girl to wait in vain for him at the church. Well, perhaps she deserved to have her hour of triumph. She certainly was getting all she possibly could out of it. One would never suspect to look at her that she was a girl who had threatened just a little while before to kill herself. She looked the ideal radiant bride.

Sherrill’s eyes went back to the face of her former lover for just an instant. It was lit with one of his most charming smiles as he greeted one of his old friends.

How she had loved that smile! How like a knife twisting in her heart was the sight of it now! Every line of his face, every motion of his slim white hand, the pose of his fine athletic body, so familiar and so beloved, how the sight of them suddenly hurt her! He was not hers anymore! He belonged to another girl! Her mind and soul writhed within her as the thought pierced home to her consciousness with more poignancy than it had yet done. He belonged to another!

But there was something worse than even that. It was that he never really had been what she thought him. There never had existed the Carter McArthur whom she had loved, or all this could not have happened.

For an instant it all swept over her how terrible it was going to be to face the devastation in her own life after this evening was over.

Then more people swarmed in, and she put aside her thoughts and faced them with a frozen smile upon her face, wondering why everybody did not see what agony she was suffering. She must not look at him again, not think about him, she told herself breathlessly as she faced her eager guests and tried to say more pleasant nothings.

At last there came a lull in the stream of guests, and Copeland turned to her confidentially, a cheerful smile upon his lips, but a graver tone to his voice: “I’m wondering what you’ve done about the license. Anything? It might make trouble for all concerned if that’s not attended to tonight before they leave. I don’t know what your law is in this state, but I’m sure it ought to be looked into right away. I’m a lawyer, you know, and I can’t help thinking of those things.”

Sherrill turned a startled face toward him.

“Mercy, no! I never thought of it. We had a license, of course. Wouldn’t that do?”

He shook his head slightly.

“I’m afraid not. Do you know where the license was gotten? If we could get hold of the man—”

“Yes, I went along. But the office would be closed tonight, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose so. Still, if we knew the man’s name, he might be willing, if there were sufficient inducement, to come over here at once and straighten things out for us.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful! Perhaps he’d come for twenty-five dollars, or even fifty. I’d offer him fifty if necessary. It would be dreadful to have that kind of trouble.”

Her eyes were full of distress.

“There, don’t look so troubled,” he said, putting on his grin again. “Remember you’re a good little sport. This can all be straightened out, I’m sure. If you could just give me a clue to find that man. You don’t know his name, I suppose?”

“Yes, I do,” said Sherrill eagerly. “His mail was brought in while we were there, and I saw the name on the letters. Afterward, too, somebody called him by it, so I am sure it was he. The name was Asahel Becker. I remembered it because it was so strange. Maybe we could find it in the telephone book. But would he have his stamps and papers and seals and things? Could he get them, do you think, if we offered him enough?”

“It’s worth trying. If you will tell me where I can telephone without being heard by this mob, I’ll see what I can do.”

“There’s a phone in the back of the hall under the stairs, but I’ll go with you, of course.”

“No, please, if you are willing to trust me, I think I can handle this without you. You have been taking an awful beating, and this is just one thing you don’t need to do. Just give me the full names, all three. Here, write them on the card so I won’t make a mistake, and then you stay right here and don’t worry! If I need you, I’ll come for you.”

He gave her a reassuring smile and was gone. Sherrill found she was trembling from head to foot, her lips trembling, too. She put up an unsteady hand to cover them. Oh, she must not give way! She must snap out of this. She must not remember yesterday when she went joyously to get that license—and how her beautiful romance was all turned to dust and ashes!

Just then the three elderly Markham sisters hovered in sight, moving in a body, fairly bristling with question marks and exclamation points, and she had plenty to do again baffling them, with no Copeland there beside her to help.

But blessed Aunt Pat turned in to help and soon had drawn the attention of all three.

“And this other bride,” said the eldest sister, Matilda by name, leveling her gaze on Arla as if she were a museum piece and then bringing it back to Aunt Pat’s face again. “Did you say she was a relative, too? A close relative?”

“Yes, in a way,” said Aunt Pat grimly, “but not so close. Quite distant, in fact. It’s on the Adams side of the family, you know.”

Sherrill gasped softly and almost gave a hysterical giggle, just catching herself in time.

“Indeed!” said Miss Markham, giving the bride another glance. “I wasn’t aware there were Adamses in your family. Then she’s not a Catherwood?”

“Oh no!” said Aunt Pat with pursed lips. “In fact”—and her voice sounded almost like a chuckle—“the relationship was several generations back.”

“Ohh!” sighed the inquisitor, lowering her lorgnette and losing interest. “Well, she seems to be quite attractive anyway.”

“Yes, isn’t she? Now let me introduce you—”

But suddenly Sherrill saw Copeland coming toward her, and her eyes sought his anxiously.

“You must be desperately tired,” he said in a low tone as he stepped into the line beside her. “Couldn’t we run away outside for just a minute and get you into the open air?”

“Oh yes!” said Sherrill gratefully. “Come through here.”

She led him to the long french window just behind the line, open to the garden terrace, and they stepped out and went down the walk, where pale moonlight from a young moon was just beginning to make itself felt.

“It’s all right,” he assured her comfortingly, drawing her arm within his own. “He’ll be here shortly with all his paper and things. He didn’t want to do it at first, but finally snapped at the bait I offered him and promised to be here within the hour. Now, had you thought where we can take him?”

“Yes,” said Sherrill, “up in that little room where you dressed. That is quite out of the way of all guests and”—she stopped short in the walk and looked up at her escort with troubled eyes—“we’ll have to tell them—the bride and groom—won’t we?” Her gaze turned back toward the house anxiously. He could see how she was dreading the ordeal.

“Not yet,” he said quickly, “not till our man comes. Then I’ll just give the tip to the best man to ask them to come upstairs. You leave that to me. I’ll attend to it all. You’ve had enough worry.”

“You are so kind!” she murmured, beginning to walk along by his side again.

He laid his hand gently over hers that rested on his arm.

“I’m glad if I can help. And by the way, I told this Mr.

Becker to come to the side entrance and ask for me, and I took the liberty of asking the butler to keep an eye out for him and let me know at once.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I should have done without you!”

“I am honored to be allowed to help,” he said, glad that she had not taken away her hand from his touch, although he was not quite sure she was aware of it, she seemed so distraught. “As far as I am concerned,” he went on brightly, “if it weren’t that you are taking such a beating, I’d be having the time of my life!”

Sherrill gave him a quick convulsive laugh that seemed very near to tears.

“Oh, if it weren’t all so very terrible,” she responded wistfully, “I’d think it was almost fun, you’re being so splendid!”

“You’re a brave girl!” said Copeland almost reverently.

They had reached the end of the garden walk.

“I suppose we ought to go back in there,” said Sherrill with a little shiver of dislike. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”

They turned and walked silently back a few steps, when suddenly a bevy of young people broke forth hilariously from the house, swinging around the corner from the front piazza and evidently bound for the garden.

“Oh!” said Sherrill, shrinking back. “We’ve got to meet them!”

“Isn’t there someplace we can hide for a minute until they have passed?” asked Copeland with a swift glance at their surroundings. “Here, how about this?” and he swung aside the tall branches of privet that bordered the path around the house and the hedge.

Sherrill stepped in and Copeland after her, and the branches swung together behind them, shutting them in together. There was not much space, for it happened that the opening in the hedge had been near the servants’ entrance door, and the hedge curved about across the end, and at the other end it rose nearly twelve feet against the end of the side piazza where they had come out. It made a little room of fragrant green, scarcely large enough for them to stand together in, with the ivy-covered stone wall of the house behind them.

There in the sweet semidarkness of the spring night, where even frail new moonlight could not enter except by reflection, and with only a few stars above, they stood, face-to-face, quietly, while the noisy throng of guests trooped by and rollicked down to the garden.

Sherrill’s face was lifted slightly and seemed a pale picture made of moonlight, so sweet and sad and tired and almost desperate there in the little green haven. Copeland, looking down suddenly, put out his arms and drew her close to him, just as a mother might have drawn a little troubled child, it seemed to her. Drew her close and held her so for an instant. She let her head lie still against his shoulder, startled at the sweetness that enwrapped her. Then softly she began to cry, her slim body shaking with the stifled sobs, the tears coming in a torrent. It was so sweet to find sympathy, even with a stranger.

Softly he stooped and kissed her drenched eyelids, kissing the tears away, then paused and looked down at her reverently.

“Forgive me!” he said tenderly in a low whisper. “I had no right to do that—now! I’m only a stranger to you! But—I wanted to comfort you!”

She was very still in his arms for a moment, and then she whispered so softly that he had to bend to hear her: “You aren’t a stranger, and—you do—comfort me!”

Suddenly above their heads there arose a clatter inside the window of the butler’s pantry.

“Quick, get those patty shells! The people are coming out to the dining room. We must begin to serve!”

Dishes began to rattle, trays to clatter; a fork fell with a silvery resonance. The swinging door fell back and let in another clatter from the kitchen. Hard cold facts of life began to fall upon the two who had been so set apart for the moment.

“We must go back at once!” said Sherrill, making hasty dabs at her eyes with her scrap of lace handkerchief.

“Of course,” said Copeland, offering a large cool square of immaculate linen.

Then he took her hand and led her gravely out into the moonlight, pulled her arm possessively through his, and accommodated his step to hers.

When they came to the long window where they had escaped a few minutes before, he looked down at her.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“All right!” she answered with a brave little catch in her breath, and smiled up at him.

He still held her hand, and he gave it a warm pressure before he let her go. Then they stepped inside the room and saw the end of the long line of guests progressing slowly down the hall and Aunt Pat hovering behind them, looking this way and that, out the front door, and into the vacated library. It was evident she was looking for Sherrill, for as they came forward her brow cleared, and she smiled a relieved smile and came to meet them.

Just an instant she lingered by Sherrill’s side as Copeland stepped to the dining room door to look over the heads of the throng and reconnoiter for seats for them all.

“I don’t know how you have planned,” said the old lady in something that sounded like a low growl, “nor how long this ridiculous performance has been going on, but I thought I’d remind you that it will be necessary for that girl to have some baggage if you expect to carry this thing out. I don’t want to interfere with your plans, but there’s that second suitcase, the one that wasn’t marked that we had sent up. It hasn’t been returned yet, you know. I suppose you’ll have to see that she has things enough to be decent on ship board, unless she has time enough to get some of her own. But if you let that lace evening dress or that shell-pink chiffon go, I’ll never forgive you. It’s bad enough to lose the going-away outfit, but I suppose there isn’t any way out of that. A couple of evening dresses and some casual things ought to see her through. Don’t be a fool and give up everything!” And Miss Catherwood, with her head in the air and a set smile on her aristocratic face, swept on to the dining room.

Sherrill stood startled, looking after her doubtfully. Did that mean that Aunt Pat was angry? Angry yet going to stand by till it was all over to the last detail? Or did it mean that she understood the awful situation better than Sherrill knew? She was a canny old lady. How wonderfully she had stood and met that line of hungry gossip-mongers! But yet, she might still be angry. Very angry! To be the talk of the town when she had done so much to make this wedding perfect in every way. To have people wondering and gossiping about them! It would be dreadful for Aunt Pat!

Sherrill had a sudden vision of what it might be to face an infuriated Aunt Pat and explain everything after it was all over, and she had that panicky impulse once more to flee away into the world and shirk it—never come back anymore. But of course she knew she never would do that!

Then Copeland touched her on the arm.

“Please, do we follow the rest, or what?” and she perceived that they two were left alone in the room, with only the end of the procession surging away from them toward the dining room.

Sherrill giggled nervously.

“I haven’t much head, have I?” she said. “I’ve got to go upstairs a minute or two and put some things in a suitcase. It won’t take long. Perhaps I’d better go now.”

“Yes,” said Copeland thoughtfully. “Now would be a good time. I’ll wait here at the foot of the stairs for you.”

She flew up the stairs with a quick smile back at her helper. He was marvelous! It could not be that he was an absolute stranger! It seemed as if she had known him always. Here she had almost laid bare her heart to him, and he had taken it all so calmly and done everything needful, just as if he understood all the details. No brother could have been more tender, more careful of her. She remembered his lips on her eyelids, and her breath came quickly. How gentle he had been!

She hurried to her own room and miraculously found Gemmie there before her, the suitcase in her hand.

“Your aunt Pat thought you might be wanting this,” said the woman respectfully, no hint of her former surprise in her eyes, no suggestion that anything was different from what it had been when the old servant left her there in her wedding dress ready to go to the church.

“Oh yes!” said Sherrill in relief. “You’ll help me, won’t you, Gemmie?”

With half-frenzied fingers Sherrill went to work, laying out things from her suitcase and bags, separating them into two piles upon the bed. The black satin evening dress, the orchid, and the yellow—those ought to be enough. Aunt Pat wasn’t especially crazy about any of those. She put aside the things that were marked with her own initials; not one of those should go. She shut her lips tight and drew in a sharp little breath of pain.

Gemmie seemed to understand. She gathered those things up quickly and put them away in the bureau drawers. Gemmie’s powers of selection were even keener than Sherrill’s.

It did not take long, three or four minutes, and Gemmie’s skillful fingers did the rest.

“There, now, Miss Sherrill, I can manage,” she said. “You run back. They’ll be missing you.”

It was as if Gemmie was also a conspirator.

“Thank you, Gemmie dear!” said Sherrill with a catch in her voice like a sob, and closed the door quickly behind her.

Copeland was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and they found places saved for them close to the bride’s table, a little table for two, and the eyes of all upon them as they sat down.

Sherrill saw the Markham sisters looking eagerly from Copeland to herself and back again, and nodding their heads violently to one another as they swept in large mouthfuls of creamed mushrooms and chicken salad. She had an impulse to put her head down on the table and laugh, or cry. She knew she was getting very near to the limit of her self-control.

But Copeland knew it also, and managed to keep her busy telling him who the different people were.

After all the ordeal was soon over, even to the cutting of the wedding cake by a bride very much at her ease and enjoying her privileges to the last degree. If Arla never was happy again, she was tonight.

And then after all the matter of the license, which loomed like a peril in Sherrill’s thoughts, was arranged so easily. Just a quiet word from the butler to Copeland, a quiet sign from Copeland to the best man. Sherrill had put money in her little pearl evening bag, which she slipped to Copeland as they went upstairs together while the bride was throwing Sherrill’s bouquet to the noisy clamoring bridesmaids down in the hall. Sherrill and Copeland were presumably escorting the bride and groom to their rooms to change into traveling garb, and no one noticed them enter the little room off the back hall where the representative of the law was waiting.

Just a few quiet questions from the grizzly old man who had come to make the legal part right, and who looked at them as only three more in the long procession that came to him day by day. They waited, those five, the best man doing his best not to seem too curious about it all, while those important seals were placed, and the proper signature affixed, and then Sherrill hurried the bride away to dress. A frightened, almost tearful bride now—afraid of her, Sherrill was sure.

Almost the last lap of this terrible race she was running! There would be one more. She would have to face Aunt Pat, but that she dared not think about yet. This present session with the bride who had taken her place was going to be perhaps the hardest of all.