CHAPTER X.

DECISION.

"AND so everything is to go on as was settled yesterday?" said Sophia to Rosa, when the two fair bridesmaids met on the following morning.

"Yes; favours, flowers, feasting, and fun, all after the most approved fashion," replied Rosa. "I have just sent off a note, by Mina's desire, to ask the Miss Allfreys to be here by ten, that we of the white tulle and rosebuds may set off to the church together. Of course you have heard that their brother is to act the part of best man?"

"Has the doctor been here to-day?"

"Oh! He was here before seven," said Rosa, "and he found that the fever was almost gone! He won't let the patient get up, however, and talks of excitement and that sort of thing; but it is clear that not much is the matter." And Rosa gave a little scornful toss of the head. "I am only vexed about poor Mina. There is she on her wedding morning talking of chicken broth and barley-water, and listening as earnestly to old Dr. Penn as if he were her bridegroom. I don't believe that if her four bridesmaids went to church in black poke bonnets instead of white veils, Mina would even notice the difference, her head is so full of this Wilfred."

"And his father sat up all night?"

"I've no patience with the boy," cried Rosa, whose curiosity had been kept so long on the rack, that the effect was seen in her temper.

"I think," said Sophia, gravely, "that this has all been the result of an attack on the nerves, brought on by sleeping in that horrible chamber."

Rosa gave a little laugh at the mention of nerves, remembering what Wilfred himself had said to her on the subject. "No," she replied, "it is that the boy did yesterday what he did on a smaller scale on the preceding day. He has gone wildly blundering on, in some self-chosen path of his own, till he has not only wounded himself with the thorns, but has almost succeeded in crushing poor Mina's bridal blossoms."

Rosa had little idea how very near her guess was to the truth.

Merrily rang the church bells; the sound of the school-children's happy voices, as they assembled on the lawn to see the bride going to church, and to strew her path with flowers, rose on the summer air.

Wilfred lay alone in his chamber, listening and thinking. The sunshine came through the coloured panes of the mullioned window, throwing gorgeous many-tinted stains on the oak-panelled wall. In the stillness of that room, how severe a conflict was going on in the mind of that boy! Words of his sister rang in his ears, "the mercy of God," as shown towards himself in the strange events of the night. Was it not through that mercy that he now lay on his pillow, a living, breathing form? Why was it, that instead of the merry chime, there was not the slow toll of the bell for the dead; that robes of mourning were not to be prepared for his sister instead of white bridal attire; that his own body was not laid out—a cold lifeless corpse—drawn after long search from those waters on whose chilly depths Wilfred shuddered to think? Was it not through the mercy of God—that God whose commands he had broken? Had he not been snatched—it seemed to Wilfred almost by miracle—from a fate so well deserved? And, had his body perished in that dark river, where would his soul now have been? Most awful of all thoughts to young Marsden! He would have been cut off in his sin, summoned to his last account, without space given for repentance, without time vouchsafed for prayer. Lines haunted the boy, he knew not where he had read them, but they seemed to image forth to him his own experience—

"Methought by a slender cord I hung O'er the black abyss of eternal death; Wildly I struggled and wildly clung, Sobs of agony choked my breath; Sin drew me down, with a mountain's weight, Each frenzied effort more hopeless making. Was judgment passed? was return too late? The last hope failing—'the cord was breaking.' I woke with a cry Of agony— My God! how fearful was that waking!"

"Yes, Mina, all that I have suffered, all that I have made you suffer, has been through my turning aside from the duty which I had not courage to face. Never, never can I forget the lesson branded into my heart, that no sacrifice for God can be so painful as the effects of disobedience, and that, however thorny it be—in the end, THE STRAIGHT ROAD IS SHORTEST AND SUREST."

THE END.

LONDON: SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET COVENT GARDEN.