Amber’s artful innuendoes had made her cousin ten times more unhappy than before. The shadow of a lowering sorrow, heavy but inexplicable, hovered with black vulture-like wings over her heart, filling it with a nameless terror. Frightened and despondent, she rose and knelt down to pray instead of sleep, asking her heavenly Father to be good to her and Cecil. CHAPTER XXI. AMBER’S REVENGE. In the little Washington chapel an anxious group waited for Cecil Grant’s appearance. They were Violet and Amber, together with the Reverend Wesley Christian and his young wife. The hour of seven had passed, and the early autumn twilight was casting weird shadows within the chapel, with its stained-glass windows. It had grown so dark that they could scarcely see each other’s faces. But Amber had stipulated that there should be no light to lure passers-by to enter. She did not wish to be recognized by any one lest her grandfather should find out her share in the elopement. “But there will be light enough at seven o’clock,” she said, plausibly enough. But seven o’clock had passed and the half-hour, also, and yet Cecil Grant did not appear. Amber was loud in wonder and disapproval of the tardy bridegroom, but Violet only trembled and sobbed nervously in her little lace handkerchief until her eyes were blinded with burning tears. She knew that it was strange, very strange, that Cecil had not kept his appointment, but it pained her gentle heart to hear Amber blame him so relentlessly for his tardiness. “Oh, Amber, do not speak so harshly. He will come, I know he will come,” she whispered, through her choking sobs, and just then they heard a carriage stopping outside. The next moment a tall, dark young man, with his hat pulled over his brows and his form enveloped in a long, traveling ulster, rushed wildly into the church, panting, in a muffled voice: “I am pursued by Judge Camden! Let us hasten the ceremony, or we will be interrupted!” He drew Violet’s little hand in his own and led her forward to the altar, followed by Amber in a state of suppressed excitement. Violet’s heart gave a throb of the joy at thought that Cecil had kept his troth, but she did not lift her sweet, tear-dimmed eyes to the face of the man by her side, or even in the twilight gloom of the chapel she would have been startled. The young minister and his wife having never seen Cecil Grant, had no thought that anything was wrong. They shared in the bride’s satisfaction over the bridegroom’s coming, and the young divine stepped to the front of the altar and made the lovers one as hastily as he could by somewhat curtailing the Episcopal marriage service. Like one in a dream, Violet felt the ring slipped over her finger, the bridegroom’s kiss on her lips, and an exultant murmur: “My wife!” But why did her heart sink down like lead instead of thrilling with a young bride’s tender joy?