e presently."

"Late!" re-echoed the girl, turning suddenly pale. "Oh Maurice, what do
you mean? _We_ were late too--it is a quarter past ten."

"Hush, my darling, he will be here directly, and more distressed than
any of us, no doubt."

"I should think so," said Ethel, trying to laugh. "Poor Oliver! what a
state he will be in!"

But the hand with which she had suddenly clutched Lesley's arm trembled,
and her lips were very white.

For a minute, for five, for ten minutes, the bridal party waited, but
Oliver did not come. A messenger came back to say that he had not been
at the club since the previous day. And then Maurice's hot temper blazed
up. He left his sister and spoke to his old friend, Miss Brooke.

"Do not let Ethel make herself a laughing-stock," he said. "The man
insults us by being late, and shall account to me for it, but she must
be got out of this somehow. Can't you take her away?"

"Let her go to the vestry," said Miss Brooke. "You had better not take
her away just yet--look at the crowd outside. I will get Lesley to
persuade her."

Ethel made no opposition. She went quietly into the vestry and sat down
on a seat that was offered to her, waiting in silence, asking no
questions. Then there was a short period of whispered consultation, of
terrible suspense. She herself did not know whether the time was short
or long. She could not bear even Lesley's arm about her, or the support
of Maurice's brotherly hand. Harry Duchesne's dark face in the
background seemed in some inexplicable sort of way the worst of all. For
she knew that he loved and admired her, and she was shamed by a recreant
lover before his very eyes.

After a time Maurice was called out. A policeman in plain clothes wanted
to speak to him. They had five minutes' conversation together, and then
the young doctor returned to the room where Ethel was still sitting. His
face was as white as that of his sister now, and she was the first to
remark the change.

"You have heard something," she said, springing to her feet and fixing
her great dark eyes upon his face.

"Yes, Ethel, my poor darling, yes. Come home with me."

"Not till you tell me the truth."

"Not here, my darling--wait till we get home. Come at once."

"I must know, Maurice: I cannot bear to wait. Is he--is he--_dead_?"

He would gladly have refused to answer, but his pallid lips spoke for
him. And from another group a shriek rang out from the lips of Rosalind
Romaine--a