he saw in this ceremony a horrible travesty
from which she must escape at all costs.... But how? She had no longer
the strength to repudiate boldly her settled decision. Her courage was
at ebb and she was caught in the grip of unreasoning panic. She would
abandon everything and everybody ... she would slip away ... she would
be true to herself first and then try afresh to be true to others. In
short she was for the time distracted.

She slipped over noiselessly and closed her door. She selected a small
traveling bag from the other pieces of luggage packed for her wedding
trip.

Then, overcome by sheer emotional exhaustion, she threw herself on her
bed where she sobbed quietly in the flickering of the candles. It was so
that the bridesmaids found her when they came in their capacity of tire
maidens to remind her that she must soon begin dressing for the
ceremony.

At once Eleanor had her arms about her friend, while Mary stood by
gasping and ineffectual.

Slowly Conscience raised her face and looked miserably from one to the
other. Her voice was dead and colorless.

"I heard what you said, Eleanor," she declared. "It's all true.... I
can't go through with it."

"But it's too late now, dear!" began Mary Barrascale's horrified voice
which Miss Kent silenced with a glance of contempt.

"Thank God, it's _not_ too late--yet," she said calmly. "It's never too
late while it's still _now_. But the bag, dear--what was that?"

Conscience rose and stood unsteadily with a trace of panic lingering in
her eyes. She spoke faintly.

"I guess I was quite mad.... I had the impulse to--to run away."

"You can't do that, you know." Eleanor Kent was one of those diminutive
and very feminine persons, who in moments of crisis can none the less
assume command with the quiet assurance of an admiral on his bridge.

"You have still a perfectly good right to change your mind, but it
mustn't be just on impulse. We're going to leave you now for thirty
minutes. When the time is up I'll be back and if you want to begin
dressing--all right." She paused a moment and then with a defiant
stiffening of her slender figure she announced crisply. "And if you
_don't_ want to, I'll go downstairs and tell them that you've decided
not to be married."

"What will they think of you?" Mary Barrascale had reached a condition
from which her contributions to the talk emerged in appalled gasps.

Eleanor wheeled on her. "They can think what they jolly well