She escaped from his arm
and would not listen to him. But--but--! When he began to talk of love
again, she stood with her forehead bowed against his bosom. Of course the
engagement was then a thing accomplished.
But still the cup might slip from her lips. Her father was now dead but
ten months, and what answer could she make when the common pressing
petition for an early marriage was poured into her ear? This was in July,
and it would never do that he should be left, unmarried, to the rigour of
another winter. She looked into his face and knew that she had cause for
fear. Oh, heavens! if all these golden hopes should fall to the ground,
and she should come to be known only as the girl who had been engaged to
the late Sir Florian! But he himself pressed the marriage on the same
ground. "They tell me," he said, "that I had better get a little south by
the beginning of October. I won't go alone. You know what I mean--eh,
Lizzie?" Of course she married him in September.
They spent a honeymoon of six weeks at a place he had in Scotland, and the
first blow came upon him as they passed through London, back from
Scotland, on their way to Italy.
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