were no holes in his armour through which the
impertinent might pry.

"Good old Benjy!" whispered young Dennant; "I say, they look a bit short
of class, those Casserols."

Shelton, who was acquainted with this family, smiled. The sensuous
sanctity all round had begun to influence him. A perfume of flowers
and dresses fought with the natural odour of the church; the rustle of
whisperings and skirts struck through the native silence of the aisles,
and Shelton idly fixed his eyes on a lady in the pew in front; without
in the least desiring to make a speculation of this sort, he wondered
whether her face was as charming as the lines of her back in their
delicate, skin-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