Free The Beloved Stranger by Grace Livingston Hill

lilies, standing under a bower that did not belong to her; and yet she was carrying it all off in the most delightfully natural way. To look at her, one would never suspect that an hour ago she had been pleading with her lover to run away with her and leave another girl to wait in vain for him at the church. Well, perhaps she deserved to have her hour of triumph. She certainly was getting all she possibly could out of it. One would never suspect to look at her that she was a girl who had threatened just a little while before to kill herself. She looked the ideal radiant bride.
    Sherrill’s eyes went back to the face of her former lover for just an instant. It was lit with one of his most charming smiles as he greeted one of his old friends.
    How she had loved that smile! How like a knife twisting in her heart was the sight of it now! Every line of his face, every motion of his slim white hand, the pose of his fine athletic body, so familiar and so beloved, how the sight of them suddenly hurt her! He was not hers anymore! He belonged to another girl! Her mind and soul writhed within her as the thought pierced home to her consciousness with more poignancy than it had yet done. He belonged to another!
    But there was something worse than even that. It was that he never really had been what she thought him. There never had existed the Carter McArthur whom she had loved, or all this could not have happened.
    For an instant it all swept over her how terrible it was going to be to face the devastation in her own life after this evening was over.
    Then more people swarmed in, and she put aside her thoughts and faced them with a frozen smile upon her face, wondering why everybody did not see what agony she was suffering. She must not look at him again, not think about him, she told herself breathlessly as she faced her eager guests and tried to say more pleasant nothings.
    At last there came a lull in the stream of guests, and Copeland turned to her confidentially, a cheerful smile upon his lips, but a graver tone to his voice: “I’m wondering what you’ve done about the license. Anything? It might make trouble for all concerned if that’s not attended to tonight before they leave. I don’t know what your law is in this state, but I’m sure it ought to be looked into right away. I’m a lawyer, you know, and I can’t help thinking of those things.”
    Sherrill turned a startled face toward him.
    “Mercy, no! I never thought of it. We had a license, of course. Wouldn’t that do?”
    He shook his head slightly.
    “I’m afraid not. Do you know where the license was gotten? If we could get hold of the man—”
    “Yes, I went along. But the office would be closed tonight, wouldn’t it?”
    “I suppose so. Still, if we knew the man’s name, he might be willing, if there were sufficient inducement, to come over here at once and straighten things out for us.”
    “Oh, that would be wonderful! Perhaps he’d come for twenty-five dollars, or even fifty. I’d offer him fifty if necessary. It would be dreadful to have that kind of trouble.”
    Her eyes were full of distress.
    “There, don’t look so troubled,” he said, putting on his grin again. “Remember you’re a good little sport. This can all be straightened out, I’m sure. If you could just give me a clue to find that man. You don’t know his name, I suppose?”
    “Yes, I do,” said Sherrill eagerly. “His mail was brought in while we were there, and I saw the name on the letters. Afterward, too, somebody called him by it, so I am sure it was he. The name was Asahel Becker. I remembered it because it was so strange. Maybe we could find it in the telephone book. But would he have his stamps and papers and seals and things? Could he get them, do you think, if we offered him enough?”
    “It’s worth trying. If you will tell me where I can telephone without being heard by this mob, I’ll see what I can do.”
    “There’s a phone in the back of the hall under