Maid of the Mist Part 55

"I would risk my soul on what seems right to these pure eyes," and he bent and kissed them warmly.

"Ten more days!" she murmured, and nestled closer, with her head on his breast so that she could feel the strong beating of his heart.

"It says 'Avice!--Avice!--Avice!'" he said quietly. "It is full of Avice," and she pressed still closer.

So the great day came, the greatest day either of their lives had known.

Wulf had found sleep impossible. His heart, full-charged, felt like to burst its mortal bounds. He rose quietly in the dark and went out into the soft twilight of the dawn--to greet the coming of the perfect day.

And she, as impossible of sleep as he, heard him in spite of all his caution, and laughed softly to herself for very happiness in him and in herself. And when he had gone, she thanked G.o.d for this great gift of a true man's love, and for that in herself which responded to it so fully.

She had not a doubt nor a fear. The smallest of either would have barred her from him. But there was not the smallest shadow between them. Their hearts were one. It was meet and good that their lives should be one also. Wulfrey paced the beach out there and found the silent darkness soothing to his bounding senses.

It was late April. The air was sweet and fresh. The sea just breathed in its sleep and no more. The water rippled silently up the hard sand with scarce a murmur. The darkness of the eastern sky thinned as he paced and watched. There came a soft suffusion of light there. It throbbed and grew. A faint touch of carmine outlined a cloud above it.

The darkness seemed to fade and melt out of the sky. All the tiny clouds above him turned their faces to the east and flushed rose-red with the joy of the new day.

He climbed a hill and caught the first golden gleam of the rising sun.

His eyes shone, and his face. In his eyes two suns were reflected.

But there was only one sun. And they were two and now were to become one. The Perfect Day had dawned.

And just as she, lying in her bed with her face in her hands, had thanked G.o.d for His goodness, so he. He flung his right hand up towards the sun in the brightening sky and said deeply, "My G.o.d, I thank Thee for this day and most of all for her!"

And, down below, he saw her coming out of the house towards him.

He sprang down to meet her, caught her hands, and looked right down through her eyes into her heart, and was satisfied.

LX

Arm in arm they paced the beach till the sun was well up, and their bank of sand shone in the flood of golden light as it had never shone before,--fresh and sweet as if but new-created.

A light wind had come with the sun. The small waves came hurrying in as though they were invited guests. At sight of the wedding-party they broke into crisp white laughter, curled themselves over in league-long sickles of tenderest lucent green, and raced up the sands to their feet in long soft swirls of liquid amber, laced with bubbles and edged with creamy foam.

"They haste to the wedding, to pay their tribute to the only bride they have ever set eyes on," said Wulf, as they stopped to watch them. "And each one is glad to give his life for a single peep at her."

"Foolish little waves," laughed she. "I am going to make their very close acquaintance presently. How beautiful the sea is this morning!"--as her eyes travelled out to the wide blue sweep beyond, with its dapple of purple shadows.

"The most beautiful sea and the most wonderful morning that ever was,"

he a.s.serted heartily. "But it is only a beginning. There will be many more like it. And still better."

"I am so glad it is so sweet a day. A dull one would have troubled me."

"But it could not possibly have been anything else."

"Oh, but it could."

"In mere outward accident perhaps. But I've got the sun inside me. I wonder it doesn't show through."

"It does," she laughed joyously. "You are all aglow."

"And never man had better reason. I would not change places with all the kings of all the earth rolled into one."

"Nor I with all the queens. We are happier here by far with nothing but ourselves."

"Ourselves, and our Love, and infinite Hope. Now let us go and eat.

My bride must not starve. That would be a bad beginning. Did you sleep?"

"Not a wink. I heard you go out."

"And I was pluming myself on not having made a sound."

While she was making cakes he busied himself making a pen out of a quill he had picked up on the beach, and she smiled when she saw what he was at.

"And the ink?" she asked.

"I've got it all ready. I always carry some with me in case of need,"

at which she knitted her brows prettily and looked puzzled.

After breakfast she said, "Now you must leave me for a couple of hours.

I am going to thank the waves for their good wishes and then I shall go to the fresh-water pool."

"You will be very careful.. You won't get yourself drowned."

"I will be very careful. And you!"

"I will go across to the spit. But when we are wed----"

"Yes--then!" she nodded rosily, and he kissed her and went off past the fresh-water pools, and splashed through the narrows that joined their lake to the smaller one, and so to the sh.o.r.e and into the sea, for the last time alone.

He waited till he was sure she had done with their bathing-pool, and then ran across and plunged into it, for the salt water braces, but sticks and never makes one feel so clean as fresh.

She was still busy with the princely brush and comb when he came on her, and his heart leaped again at her fresh and radiant beauty.

She had clothed herself all in spotless linen, swathed about her in that marvellous fas.h.i.+on of which she held the secret to perfection. To his rejoicing eyes she appeared half angel, half Vestal Virgin, yet all bewitching human girl, and, best of all, his bride.

"Be thankful you're a man, and delivered from this," she said, her eyes s.h.i.+ning through the glorious veil at his visible joy in her.

"I'm thankful I'm a man, but I wouldn't have you relieved of that for half the world. I glory in it," and he bent and kissed it. "For a moment I thought you were an angel."

"Perhaps I am."

"I know you are. But, thank G.o.d, you're human too! Men don't wed with angels.... I must go and dress myself also," and he disappeared into the house.

When, in due course, he came out, gallantly clad in a long blue coat with flap-pockets, and figured vest, and white silk knee-breeches, and stockings to suit, she first stared and then laughed.

"My faith, but we are fine!" said she. "But, in truth, I like you best as I have known you best. Do you marry in a dead man's clothes?"