she loved; but no hapless condemned wretch who ever woke to see the sun shining upon the day of his execution could have been more profoundly wretched than the bailiff’s daughter, as she dressed herself mechanically in her one smart silk gown, and stood in a kind of waking trance before the quaint old-fashioned looking-glass which reflected her pale hopeless face.  She had no girlish companion to assist in that dismal toilet.  Long ago there had been promises exchanged between Ellen Carley and her chosen friend, the daughter of a miller who lived a little way on the other side of Crosber, to the effect that whichever was first to marry should call upon the other to perform the office of bridesmaid; and Sarah Peters, the miller’s daughter, was still single and eligible for the function.  But there was to be no bridesmaid at this blighted wedding.  Ellen had pleaded urgently that things might be arranged as quietly as possible; and the master of Wyncomb, who hated spending money, and who apprehended that the expenses of any festivity would in all probability fall upon his own shoulders, was very well pleased to assent to this request of his betrothed.

“Quite right, Nell,” he said; “we don’t want any foolish fuss, or a pack of people making themselves drunk at our expense.  You and your father can come quietly to Crosber church, and Mrs. Tadman and me will meet you there, and the thing’s done.  The marriage wouldn’t be any the tighter if we had a hundred people looking on, and the Bishop of Winchester to read the service.”

It was arranged in this manner, therefore; and on that pleasant spring morning William Carley and his daughter walked to the quiet village where Gilbert Fenton had discovered the secret of Marian’s retreat.  The face under the bride’s little straw bonnet was deadly pale, and the features had a rigid look that was new to them.  The bailiff glanced at his daughter in a furtive way every now and then, with an uneasy sense of this strange look in her face.  Even in his brute nature there were some faint twinges of compunction, now that the deed he had been so eager to compass was well-nigh done—­some vague consciousness that he had been a hard and cruel father.

“And yet it’s all for her own good,” he told himself, “quite as much as for mine.  Better to marry a rich man than a pauper any day; and to take a dislike to a man’s age or a man’s looks is nothing but a girl’s nonsense.  The best husband is the one that can keep his wife best; and if I hadn’t forced on this business, she’d have taken up with lawyer Randall’s son, who’s no better than a beggar, and a pretty life she’d have had of it with him.”

By such reasoning as this William Carley contrived to set his conscience at rest during that silent walk along the rustic lane between the Grange and Crosber church.  It was not a conscience very difficult to appease.  And as for his daughter’s pallid looks, those of course were only natural to the occasion.