Charley Bonair had indeed gone away from his sisters in an angry mood, stung by their reproaches and embittered by their sharp abuse of his wife, the scheming nobody, as they did not scruple to call her to his face.
He also, in the fullness of his happiness, had sent off a telegram to his father before he had carried his news up to Bonair, and it ran very simply:
“Rosalind and I broke off recently, and I have to-day married another girl who has the truest heart and fairest face in the world, so that I confidently hope for your forgiveness and your blessing.”
Charley thought this was a masterly stroke, the prompt confession of his mésalliance, and hoped much from it, little dreaming of the malicious message that followed it from his sisters, entreating Senator Bonair to return home and do something or other to Charley in punishment for the disgrace he had brought on the family, marrying a scheming little actress, an out-and-out nobody, and jilting his beautiful promised bride.
In their anger, the sisters did not care to recall the praises they had bestowed on Berry for her beauty and her clever acting, nor the pity they had felt for her after the accident that so nearly ended her life. Her unparalleled impudence in marrying Charley because he asked her and because she loved him blotted out everything else in her favor.
But Charley, returning to the cottage, basked in the smiles of his charming bride, and resolutely put dull care behind him.
It is wonderful what miracles love can work in a day!
Berenice, who had been convalescing slowly and listlessly because her sad heart took but little interest in life, had changed in a night and day to a lovely, hopeful creature whose brown eyes glowed with love and joy, while her thin cheeks had put on the roses of nature under Charley’s fond, eager glance, that was to her like the sun shining upon a flower, unfolding it to glorious bloom.
The happy excitement had loaned her such fictitious strength that the nurse had permitted her to sit up in a chair for the wedding, and Mrs. Cline had gone to a shop and bought for her a simple white robe with white laces and ribbons to make it look bridelike.
Thus attired, and with her little hand in Charley’s she had murmured timidly, after the minister, the sweet words of the service that made her the sweetest and happiest of brides.
When it was all over they had all gone out quietly and left them alone for a blissful half hour.
Charley knelt down by his bonnie bride and clasped her to his heart.
“My queen!” he murmured, kissing her hands, her face and hair in an ecstasy of triumphant love.
She drooped against his breast, very tired, but very happy.
“Oh, I do not know how to realize my bliss!” she murmured. “I am really your wife, Charley, your own wife, and you are my husband! Ah, it does not seem possible! I loved you in vain so long, I almost fear I am dreaming.”
“It is no dream, but the sweetest reality in the world—to me!” he cried ardently, stopping the words on her lips with kisses. And so they went on, until Mrs. Cline returned and said:
“Now, my dear sir, you must go out and leave your lady to rest. She has stayed up too long already.”
Charley obeyed reluctantly, and beckoning her to the door, said, in a whisper:
“You will have to prepare a room for me down here, Mrs. Cline, for I am determined to stay and nurse my lovely bride back to health.”
“That can be quickly done, sir. Her improvement is miraculous already, and will, no doubt, continue with due care. As to a room, I can make you comfortable, no doubt, but you will miss the grandeur of Bonair,” the woman answered, with a curtsey.
Charley answered, with a laugh:
“I may have to miss those grandeurs always, henceforward, Mrs. Cline, for if my father should be as angry as my sisters are he will probably disinherit me.”
“Ah, no fear of that I think, sir, and you his only son, the apple of his eye, as it were. And, dear me, sir, if he should be angry at you, why, what would he be at me and Sam for aiding and abetting your marriage? He would very likely turn us out of this place!” cried the woman uneasily, for her many years at Bonair had endeared the place to her heart.
“If he does I will find you another place as good, so don’t begin to worry yet. Let us look on the bright side as long as we can!” cried sanguine Charley.
And from that moment he began to live up to his creed, never uttering a word of apprehension as to the outcome of his marriage.
He had followed up his telegram to his father with a long explanatory letter in which he did full justice to the charms of his bride; but to neither one came any reply, although up at Bonair the sisters had received a speedy answer that read briefly:
“I am horrified, but do not see anything that I can do. Will leave at once in special car for home.”
So up at Bonair, as the days slipped away, they began to expect the master, but they kept it secret from Charley, whom they scornfully said was keeping up his dignity down yonder in his fool’s paradise.
In fact, Charley did not go near them again.
He had a sense of bitter outrage in the cavalier treatment they had accorded him, and kept away from Bonair trying to forget them in the new and delightful role of benedict.
In the meantime, the news had got into the daily papers and created its due sensation.
Reporters flocked to the keeper’s cottage, and Charley submitted to interviews for the sake of setting his bride right with the public. Meager details of the romance were given out and created considerable sensation; but the still delicate bride saw no one as yet, although the members of her company called in a body, headed by Mr. Weston, to offer congratulations.
Charley entertained them cordially, excusing Berenice on the score of her weakness, and, saying he hoped she would soon get strong enough to go away with him on their honeymoon trip. He added genially, that she could never tread the boards again. She must content herself with entertaining her husband.
He took pains to show great friendliness for Mr. Weston at whose secret pain he very easily guessed, and his cordiality won him a true friend whose worth was latterly to be well proved.
So the days slipped away, and Berry would never forget that morning when she first sat up for the day in a pretty house gown of rosy pink cashmere, cascaded in lace, that Charley himself had gone shopping to buy for his darling. She glanced up as Charley entered, and at sight of his eager face, exclaimed:
“What has happened, dearest, that you look so excited?”
He clasped her to his heart, covering the sweet face with ardent kisses till she laughingly cried for mercy.
Then he gave her the great bunch of pink roses he had brought, and explained:
“I have great news, my darling girl. I have just heard that father arrived home unexpectedly last evening, and although it seems strange and rather discouraging that he has not sent word down to me, still I shall do my duty by going up to call on him, and if he has forgiven me I shall bring him down to call on his new daughter. If he should be angry I will soon return alone!” And with a stifled sigh of keen anxiety, he embraced his trembling bride and hurried away.
Left alone, she threw herself down nervously to rest on her couch, quite frightened at the idea of meeting the great, rich senator, her husband’s father.
She need not have been so nervous and uneasy had she but known.
Hours slipped away, and Charley did not return, and her suspense grew almost unbearable.
Mrs. Cline came in at last with such a pale, indignant face that the nervous young bride nearly fainted with dread.
“Something dreadful must have happened to make you look so strange,” she cried uneasily, adding: “I fear you have had bad news for me.”
Her heart nearly stopped its beating when Mrs. Cline answered angrily:
“Bad! I should say so, but try to hear it the best you can, dear young lady, for that high and mighty man, your husband’s father, has had Mr. Charley arrested and clapped in jail on a charge of insanity!”