A Bride from the Bush. Ernest William Hornung

James Bligh! At the same moment there was a loud shout behind her, and she staggered backward almost into the arms of her horror-stricken ​husband. Even then the Bride knew that Granville was there too, watching her misery with grinning eyes. And the Judge did not move a muscle, but stood as he had stood under her fire, piercing her through and through with his stern eyes; and there was an expression upon his face which the worst malefactors he had ever dealt with had perhaps not seen there; and a terrible silence held the air after the mad uproar of the last few minutes.

      That awful stillness was broken by the patter of unsteady footsteps. With a crimson face the Bride tottered rather than ran across the yard, and fell upon her knees on the wet cement, at the Judge's feet.

      'Forgive me,' she said; 'I never saw it was you!'