You will be its true mistress by that time. You will
have discovered the true happiness of life. Until then, my darling,
you will not have lived. Even I found joy and happiness in their
fullest estate before I came to know bitterness and unrest. You are to
be very, very happy. I will come to you in the midst of it all."
After they were gone and the lights were out Mary Braddock, wide-eyed
and tense, stole down to the stables and waited for the father of the
bride. She was there a long while ahead of the appointed time--hours,
it seemed to her.
He came at last, slinking up from the mouth of the alley where a
single street-light spread a dim glow in which he resolved himself for
a moment in transit, only to be blotted out again as if by some magic
process. With narrowed, anxious eyes and alert ears she waited,
standing there in the half-open door of the carriage-house. Suddenly
he grew up out of the darkness, almost at her side.
"Tom," she cried out softly.
He came straight to her. His eyes, used to the darkness and made keen
by the ever-present sense of danger, had seen the faintly white
splotch in the night that marked her face for him.
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