Ida May had scarcely gained the street before a carriage drove up, and Eugene Mallard sprung from it. He was surprised at seeing Ida advancing to meet him. She drew back with a cry.
"Are you ready?" he asked; but before she could answer, he went on: "You do not wear your traveling-dress. Was there anything amiss with it?"
[135]
She tried to keep back the sobs from her lips; but almost before she was aware of it, she had confessed to him that she was about to flee from him.
Standing there, very gently and patiently, he went over the ground with her, insisting upon her following out their original plan; and the upshot of it all was, she returned to her room, donned her traveling-dress, joined him again, and took a seat beside him in the carriage.
A little later the railway station was reached, and they were soon whirling away toward the mysteries of the future.
"We will reach our destination a little before midnight," Eugene said, seating himself opposite her. "There will be a number of old friends at the station to give my bride a welcome home," he added in a voice that was husky, despite his efforts at self-control; and Ida knew that he was thinking of that other bride whom he had intended to bring to them, and she felt most wretched at the effort he was making to look the present difficulty in the face and bear up under it.
How he must loathe her! Her very presence most be hateful to him! The thought of that made her shrink still further from Eugene Mallard.
She felt like opening the car window and springing from it out into the blackness of the night. Then he would be free to marry Hildegarde. On and on through the darkness rushed the express.
"The next station will be ours," he said at length. Ida looked up in apprehension. There would be a party of friends awaiting Eugene's home-coming; but, ah! what would they say when they saw that it was not Hildegarde whom he had wedded? Had he a mother—had he sisters?
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