The wedding-dress and veil lying in their box, swathed in tissue-paper,
had a gossamer unreality about them that even the sense of touch could
not dispel. No--no! The bride of to-morrow was surely, surely, not
herself!
They were to spend the first part of their honeymoon at a little
place on the Cornish coast, very far from everywhere, as Sir Eustace
said. She thought of that little place with a vague wonder. It was the
stepping-stone between the life she now knew and that new unknown life
that awaited her. She would go there just Dinah--work-a-day Dinah--her
own ordinary self. She would leave a fortnight after, possibly less, a
totally different being--a married woman, Lady Studley, part and parcel
of Sir Eustace's train, his most intimate belonging, most exclusively his
own.
She trembled afresh as this thought came home to her. Despite his
assurances, marriage seemed to her a terrible thing. It was like parting,
not only with the old life, but with herself.
She dressed mechanically, scarcely thinking of her appearance, roused
only at length from her pre-occupation by the tread of hoofs under her
window. She leaned forth quickly and discerned Scott on horseback,--a
trim, upright figure, very confident in the saddle--and with him Billy
still mounted on Rupert and evidently in the highest spirits.
The latter spied her at once and accosted her in his cracked, cheerful
voice.
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