had not aimed at, but which had come almost in spite of
Jael Dence walked into the room, and went to Mr. Raby.
"The bride desires to see you immediately, sir."
Raby rose, and followed Jael out.
The next minute a lady's maid came, with a similar message to Dr. Amboyne.
He rose with great alacrity, and followed her.
There was nothing remarkable in the bride's taking private leave of these two valued friends. But somehow the mysterious things that had preceded made the guests look with half-suspicious eyes into every thing; and Coventry's manifest discomfiture, when Dr. Amboyne was sent for, justified this vague sense that there was something strange going on beneath the surface.
Neither Raby nor Amboyne came down again, and Mr. Beresford remarked aloud that the bride's room was like the lion's den in the fable, "'Vestigia nulla retrorsum.'"
At last the situation became intolerable to Coventry. He rose, in desperation, and said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, that he must, nevertheless, face the dangers of the place himself, as the carriage was now packed, and Mrs. Coventry and he, though loath to leave their kind friends, had a longish journey before them. "Do not move, I pray; I shall be back directly."