The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney, though she expected he must go rattling¹ past on his way to the Port for a license².

 

Perhaps he had changed his mind.

 

But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly swooped⁴ over the crest⁵ of the wooded hill beyond the lane. Valancy was waiting at the gate for her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all bride-like—she really looked like a wild elf strayed out of the greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing at all mattered except that Barney was coming for her.

 

“Ready?” said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible noises.

 

“Yes.” Valancy stepped in and sat down. Barney was in his blue shirt and overalls⁷. But they were clean overalls. He was smoking a villainous-looking pipe and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of oddly smart boots on under his shabby overalls. And he was shaved. They clattered⁸ into Deerwood and through Deerwood and hit the long, wooded road to the Port.

 

“Haven’t changed your mind?” said Barney.

 

“No. Have you?”

 

“No.”

 

That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles. Everything was more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn’t know whether she felt happy. Or terrified. Or just plain fool.

 

Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry eyes of hundreds of great, stealthy panthers. Barney briefly⁹ asked where Mr. Towers lived, and Valancy as briefly told him. They stopped before the shabby little house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby parlour. Barney produced his license. So he had got it. Also a ring. This thing was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was actually on the point of being married.

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