Lord Calderwood had been
seized with a paralytic stroke--his third attack--at ten o'clock the
previous night, and had expired at half-past eight that morning. There
could be no wedding that day--nor for many days and weeks to come.
"O, Geraldine, my poor Geraldine, let me go to her!" cried Lady Laura,
disengaging herself from her husband's arms and rushing upstairs. Mr.
Armstrong hurried after her.
"Laura, my sweet girl, don't agitate yourself; consider yourself," he
cried, and followed, with Lady Louisa sobbing and wailing behind him.
Geraldine had not left her room yet. The ill news was to find her on the
threshold, calm and lovely in the splendour of her bridal dress.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVII.
"'TIS DEEPEST WINTER IN LORD TIMOR'S PURSE."
Before nightfall--before the evening which was to have been enlivened by a
dinner-party and a carpet-dance, and while bride and bridegroom should have
been speeding southwards to that noble Kentish mansion which his uncle had
lent George Fairfax--before the rooks flew homeward across the woods beyond
Hale--there had been a general flight from the Castle. People were anxious
to leave the mourners alone with their grief, and even the most intimate
felt more or less in the way, though Mr. Armstrong entreated that there
might be no hurry, no inconvenience for any one.
"Poor Laura won't be fit to be seen for a day or two," he said, "and of
course I shall have to go up to town for the funeral; but that need make no
difference.
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