“Susan!” cried a well-known voice behind her.  She trembled and almost crouched ere she turned; but the moment she turned round she gave a scream that brought all the company running, and the bride forgot everything at the sight of George’s handsome, honest face beaming truth and love, and threw herself into his arms.  George kissed the bride.

“Oh!” cried the bridesmaids, awaking from their stupor, and remembering this was her old lover.  “Oh!” “Oh!!” “Oh!!!” on an ascending scale.

These exclamations brought Susan to her senses.  She sprang from George as though an adder had stung her; and, red as fire, her eyes like basilisks’, she turned on him at a safe distance.  “How dare you embrace me?  How dare you come where I am?  Father, ask this man why he comes here now to make me expose myself, and insult the honest man who honors me with his respect.  Oh, father, come to me, and take me away from here.”

“Susan, what on earth is this? what have I done?”

“What have you done?  You are false to me! you never wrote me a letter for twelve months, and you are married to a lady in Bathurst!  Oh, George!”

“If he is,” cried Robinson, “he must be slyer than I give him credit for, for I have never left his side night nor day, and I never saw him say three civil words to a woman.”

“Mr. Robinson!”

“Yes, Mr. Robinson.  Somebody has been making a fool of you, Miss Merton.  Why, all his cry night and day has been, ‘Susan!  Susan!’ When we found the great nugget he kisses it, and says he, ’There, that is not because you are gold, but because you take me to Susan.’”

“Hold your tongue, Tom,” said George, sternly.  “Who puts me on my defense?  Is there any man here who has been telling her I have ever had a thought of any girl but her?  If there is, let him stand out now and say it to my face if he dares.”  There was a dead silence.  “There is a lie without a backer, it seems;” and he looked round on all the company with his calm superior eye.  “And now, Susan, what were you doing on that man’s arm?”

“Oh!”

“Miss Merton and I are to be married to-day,” said Meadows, “that is why I gave her my arm.”

George gasped for breath, but he controlled himself by a mighty effort.  “She thought me false, and now she knows I am true.  Susan,” faltered he, “I say nothing about the promises that have passed between us two, and the ring you gave.  Here it is.”

“He has kept my ring!”

“I was there before you, Mr. Meadows—­but I won’t stand upon that; I don’t believe there is a man in the world loves a woman in the world better than I love Susan; but still I would not give a snap of the finger to have her if her will was toward another.  So please yourself, my lass, and don’t cry like that; only this must end.  I won’t live in doubt a moment, no, nor half a moment.  Speak your pleasure and nothing else; choose between John Meadows and George Fielding.”