Their desultory discourse was soon interrupted by their arrival at the cottage of Mr. Wharton. No one appearing to usher them into an apartment, the captain proceeded to the door of the parlor, where he knew visitors were commonly received. On opening it, he paused for a moment, in admiration of the scene within. The person of Colonel Wellmere first met his eye, bending towards the figure of the blushing Sarah with an earnestness of manner that prevented the noise of Lawton's entrance from being heard by either party. Certain significant signs, which were embraced at a glance by the trooper, at once made him a master of their secret, and he and the surgeon retired as silently as they had advanced.
They were met by Miss Peyton, who acquainted them of the approaching marriage of her eldest niece and Colonel Wellmere, and invited them to be present. The gentlemen bowed; and the good aunt, with an inherent love of propriety, went on to add that the acquaintance was of an old date, and the attachment by no means a sudden thing; that the consent to this sudden union of Sarah and Wellmere, and especially at a time when the life of a member of the family was in imminent jeopardy,[93] was given from a conviction that the unsettled state of the country would probably prevent another opportunity to the lovers of meeting, and a secret dread on the part of Mr. Wharton that the death of his son might, by hastening his own, leave his remaining children without a protector.
Miss Peyton now led them to the room where Lawton had left Sarah and Colonel Wellmere, and awaited the nuptials.
Wellmere, offering Sarah his hand, led her before the divine, and the ceremony began. The first words of this imposing office produced a dead stillness in the apartment; and the minister of God was about to proceed when a figure, gliding into the midst of the party, at once put a stop to the ceremony. It was the peddler. His look was bitter and ironical,[94] while a finger raised towards the divine seemed to forbid the ceremony to go any further.
[Footnote 94: expressing one thing and meaning another.]
"Can Colonel Wellmere waste the precious moments here, when his wife has crossed the ocean to meet him? The nights are long, and the moon bright; a few hours will take him to the city."