A cry of horror burst from Oliver in spite of himself; and even the rigid priest was moved.
‘Why did you do her up like that?’ he said, in a sharp tone to Matilda, who stood admiring her handiwork.
The poor creature herself had a look of delighted vanity in her terrible gleaming eyes. The mother had a mirror in her hands, in which she had been displaying her own appearance to the bride. The bride! Oliver turned away and hid his face in his hands.
‘I cannot--I cannot carry out this farce,’ he said.
The curate placed his hand upon Wentworth’s arm. ‘You must,’ he said, with his severe, unpitying voice. ‘Whose fault is it that this is a farce? Stand forward, sir, and give this poor wreck, this creature you have ruined, what compensation you can at the last.’
Oliver raised his eyes to his uncompromising judge with a wonder which paralysed all effort. ‘You are mistaken,’ he said: but to pause now was impossible; he went forward doggedly and placed himself by the bed, and listened with a dull horror, as under a spell, to those words--those words which he had thought of under so different a meaning--words of solemn joy and devotion, words that could only be endured for the sake of the pledge they sanctified. He listened and he took his part like a man in a dream. He had provided no ring, and the ceremony was interrupted till an old, shabby little trinket, set with some discoloured turquoises, was hunted up from a drawer. But it was completed at last, and she was his wife--his wife! She put back the veil with a nervous movement, and inclined her head towards his. Was that necessary, too? Was there to be no end to these exactions? ‘Oliver!’ she cried.
He turned from her, sick to the heart. ‘Take those fooleries away--don’t you see how horrible it is?’ he said to Matilda, and hurried downstairs, flying from the look and the touch of the woman who--oh, Heaven!--was now his wife.
The little priest followed him. He was as severe as ever. ‘You have done something in the way of atonement,’ he said, ‘but if this is how you are to follow it up, I warn you that such an atonement will not be accepted. It must be from the heart.’
Oliver turned upon him. He seemed to be coming to life again after the dismal paralytic fit through which he had passed.