tight setting of pearl grey; his glance wandered to the
chancel with its stacks of flowers, to the grave, business faces of the
presiding priests, till the organ began rolling out the wedding march.

"They're off!" whispered young Dermant.

Shelton was conscious of a shiver running through the audience which
reminded him of a bullfight he had seen in Spain. The bride came slowly
up the aisle. "Antonia will look like that," he thought, "and the church
will be filled with people like this . . . . She'll be a show to
them!" The bride was opposite him now, and by an instinct of common
chivalry he turned away his eyes; it seemed to him a shame to look at
that downcast head above the silver mystery of her perfect raiment; the
modest head full, doubtless, of devotion and pure yearnings; the stately
head where no such thought as "How am I looking, this day of all days,
before all London?" had ever entered; the proud head, which no such fear
as "How am I carrying it off?" could surely be besmirching.

He saw below the surface of this drama played before his eyes, and set
his face, as a man might who found himself assisting at a sacrifice. The
words fell, unrelenting, on his ears: "For better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer; in sickness and in health--" and opening the Prayer Book he
found the Marriage Service, which he had not looked at since he was a
boy, and as he read he had some very curious sensations.

All this would soon be happening to himself! He went on reading in a
kind of stupor, until aroused by his companion whispering, "No luck!" All
around there rose a rustling of skirts; he saw a tall figure mount the
pulpit and stand motionless. Massive and high-featured, sunken of eye,
he towered, in snowy cambric and a crimson stole, above the blackness of
his rostrum; it seemed he had been chosen for his beauty. Shelton was
still gazing at the stitching of his gloves, when once again the organ
played the Wedding March. All were smiling, and a few were weeping,
craning their heads towards the bride. "Carnival of second-hand
emotions!" thought Shelton; and he, too, craned his head and brushed his
hat. Then, smirking at his friends, he made his way towards the door.

In the Casserols' house he found himself at last going round the presents
with the eldest Casserol surviving, a tall girl in pale violet, who had
been chief bridesmaid.

"Did n't it go off well, Mr. Shelton?" she was saying

"Oh, awfully!"