The Insane Root by Rosa Praed — Read

In the large drawing-room--that room which contained the Emperor's portrait--Marillier and Ahmed Hey awaited the arrival of the Registrar. An intense excitement possessed Marillier. In truth, during these few hours, the man's whole nature seemed to--have changed, and he was neither the old Lucien nor the new Caspar, but a curious combination of both, braced and girt with his hope and his passion and the wild sense of elation that filled him. He walked--rapidly up and down the long room, almost unable to curb his eagerness, one moment stopping to finger tenderly a piece of work Rachel had left lying about or a bowl of flowers he knew she had arranged, the next, laughing boisterously and making youthful jokes with Ahmed, who, versatile though he knew mood. Ahmed put it down, however, to the natural Caspar to be, had never seen his comrade in this intoxication of a man about to wed the woman of his heart, and responded with genial banter, always alive to the desirability of ingratiating himself with one whose friendship might serve him in good stead. Ahmed Bey was more fussily important than usual, but Marillier, who might at any other time have felt irritated by his manner, smiled leniently upon the little man's pomposity, so lifted did he feel above the mundane trifles that yesterday would have annoyed him. He was really grateful to Ahmed for his sympathy and the trouble he had taken in making arrangements for the journey, and the two chatted cheerily till the door opened to the butler's announcement of the Registrar.

This gentleman was commonplace, yet with something of dignity in his manner. His arrival sobered Marillier. The solemnity of the whole situation came over him, and he said little, leaving his colleague to answer the Registrar's bland remarks upon the weather, the prospect of the journey--which had been given as a reason for this hurried marriage--some commercial aspects of England's relations with Abaria, and such like conventional topics. Ahmed Hey had himself arranged a table at what he considered a convenient angle, and had set out ink and pens; and now the Registrar's great book was opened and placed upon it. Marillier quietly watched these proceedings, scarcely seeming to be affected by them. The table happened to have been set in front of the Emperor's portrait; thus, when the Registrar took his seat with his back to the picture, it became evident that those about to be married must stand as it were before Abdullulah Zobeir, whose pictured face gazing down upon the scene, seemed to Marillier, in the brief glance he cast at it, to have taken on an inscrutable and disagreeably cynical smile. Marillier observed the position of the table but would not alter it, though the portrait gave him the uncomfortable sense of an undesired witness to the ceremony. He feared that personality and dreaded its power, but he was determined at any cost to carry through his project, defying results, and therefore resolutely put from him all qualms. Presently the double door at the end of the room opened again and Rachel came in with Nurse Dalison. Ahmed Hey, in his character of witness and best man, went forward ceremoniously to meet her, and Rachel, surprisingly self-possessed, greeted him with a little friendly smile, and placed her hand upon his proffered arm, allowing him to escort her up the room.