"I listened to him like a man in a dream. He himself was the bridegroom.
The bride was to appear masked, also, and I was only to hear their
Christian names--Ernest--Mary. He offered no explanations, no apologies;
he simply stated facts. I was to marry them and ask no questions, and I
was to be conveyed safely home the same night. If I refused--
"My masked gentleman paused, and left an awful hiatus for me to fill up.
I did not refuse--by no means. It has always been my way to make the
best of a bad bargain--of two evils to choose the lesser. I consented.
"The bridegroom with the black mask quitted the room, and returned with
a bride in a white mask. She was all in white, as it is right and proper
to be--flowing veil, orange wreath, trailing silk robe--everything quite
nice. But the white mask spoiled all. She was undersized and very
slender, and there was one peculiarity about her I noticed--an abundance
of bright, golden ringlets."
The reverend gentleman paused an instant to take breath.
Mollie Dane, scarcely breathing herself, listening absorbed, here
became conscious, by some sort of prescience, of the basilisk gaze her
guardian's wife had fixed upon her.
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