She uttered all the words of the service in a low and distinct voice, yet never once were her dark blue eyes raised to those of the earnest and generous Philip Daubeny, whose glances, moderated of course by the knowledge that they were so closely observed, were full of love and tenderness; and, in truth, even at that solemn moment, Laura felt that though he had her highest respect and her genuine esteem, she did not love him, and could only pray to Heaven, in her silent heart, that the time might come when she should do so as a wedded wife. Laura bore up nobly. If she clung to her husband's arm, and thus sent a thrill to his heart as they quitted the gloomy fane, with its earthy odour, for the sunshine of the churchyard, where the cheers of assembled hundreds greeted them, it was only because she felt weak, and wondered when the time would come that would see her laid in yonder vault, where all the Daubenys of past ages lay--the vault, with its ponderous door, mildewed and rusty, and half-hidden by huge fern leaves and churchyard nettles--and on reaching the Vicarage she nearly fainted, greatly to the terror of Daubeny and the anxiety of all. Avoiding the former, she clung to her father. "Kiss me, papa," she said again and again. "Kiss me, papa; are you pleased with me--pleased with your poor Laura now?" "Yes, my darling, yes," replied the old Vicar, folding her in his arms. He had heard much of Jack Westbrook: but thought that, so far as himself and his family were concerned, "matters were now, indeed, ordered for the best" in her marriage with the Squire of Craybourne. A man of the world--one who had seen twenty years of dangerous military service in the East--Phil Daubeny was one of whom any woman might be proud, handsome, wealthy, and well-born, and all thought that Laura was as happy in her choice as in her heart; but the image of Jack Westbrook, of whom he knew _nothing_, stood--and was for a time fated to stand--as a barrier between her and the man she had vowed to "love, honour, and obey;" and most earnestly in her soul did she pray, as the carriage bore her from her beloved home for ever, that never more in this world might Westbrook's path cross hers; but not that she feared evil would come of it, for Laura was too wifely, too pure, and too good for such an idea to occur to her. CHAPTER III. Amid the congratulations of friends, under the radiant smiles of her husband, even when her head nestled on his shoulder and his strong arm went lovingly round her; amid all the innumerable gaieties of Paris, of Brussels--a new world to her--this ghost seemed morbidly to haunt her; yet the honeymoon glided away, and the second month found them, amid all the charms of midsummer, located in their luxurious home at Craybourne Hall, from the upper oriels of which she could see the smoke, from the old clustered chimneys of the Vicarage, curling about the leafy coppice.