There was a weight on Edith's heart; but in spite of this, Dudleigh's
last look, his agitated manner, and his deep love filled her with pity,
and made her anxious to carry out her act of self-sacrifice for so dear
and so true a friend.

* * * * *




CHAPTER XXVIII.


A MARRIAGE IN THE DARK.

The chapel referred to was a sombre edifice over the graves of the
Daltons. Beneath it were the vaults where reposed the remains of Edith's
ancestors. The chapel was used for the celebration of burial rites. It
was in this place that the marriage was to take place. Edith, in her
gloom, thought the place an appropriate one. Let the marriage be there,
she thought--in that place where never anything but burials has been
known before. Could she have changed the one service into the other, she
would have done so.

And yet she would not go back, for it was the least of two evils. The
other alternative was captivity under the iron hand of Wiggins--Wiggins
the adventurer, the forger, the betrayer of her father, whose power over
herself was a perpetual insult to that father's memory--a thing
intolerable, a thing of horror. Why should she not give herself to the
man who loved her, even if her own love was wanting, when such an act