"I am longing to know all about _him_," she wrote. "After the intimacy between us I have felt your silence hard; it is now explained; you are happy in having found your ideal already; I was always afraid that few could come up to your high standard, and you are not the sort of character to marry without both love and esteem."
Poor Margaret! Already her quick-sightedness, unblinded by love, showed her Mr. Drayton as he was--vain, and led by his vanity alone. He was good-humoured in all else and inclined to be kind, but if he was not upon good terms with himself, if he was not flattered, his good-humour vanished and he became rude and sulky. And Margaret, among other things, dreaded his rudeness, and, but for that prostrate figure so indescribably dear to her, would have died rather than have faced life with him. To her it was a moral death, and not the least painful part of the sacrifice was, that, while she could see nothing else, she fell in her own esteem.
It was a forlorn little ceremony altogether. Mrs. Dorriman, who clung faithfully to the poor child, went with her to Glasgow, where Mr. Drayton had made all the necessary arrangements.
Nothing less like a bride ever went to the altar. All the time the ceremony went on Margaret heard nothing, thought of nothing, but was uttering fervent prayers for forgiveness and help. There was a hurried farewell. Mrs. Dorriman saw them into the train--they were going away for a little time.
As she still stood there Margaret turned her tearful eyes towards the man who was now her husband.
"When shall we return? I want to send a message to my sister."
For all answer he repeated to her the words she had just uttered,
"'Forsaking all others, cleaving only to him,'" and, as he spoke, the train started.
Grace lay back after parting from Margaret with a sense of having at length got her foot upon sure ground; but there was not that entire sense of satisfaction which she had expected. The remembrance of Margaret's white face and the quivering lips was not pleasant. It was quite Margaret's way to take high ground about everything--she saw everything in an exaggerated way; that came of having such a poetical temperament, which was not always a desirable thing.