lerable light. Her heart thumped and raced as though
it would choke her. Unconsciously she gasped for breath. That ring was
to her another bar in the door of her prison-house.

At an urgent call from one of her cousins, she started and almost threw
the box, with its contents, into a drawer. Feverishly she began to
dress. It was much later than she had realised. When she appeared in the
hall with the other bridesmaids, some one remarked upon her deathly
pallor, but she shrank away behind the bride, anxious only to screen
herself from observation. She would have given all she had to have
avoided Tots just then, but there was no escape for her. He was in the
church-porch as she entered it, though there was no time for more than a
hurried hand-clasp.

The church was very hot, and the crush of guests great. She listened to
the marriage service as a prisoner might listen to his death sentence.
The irrevocability of it was anguish to her tortured imagination. And
all the while she was conscious--vividly, terribly conscious--of Tots's
presence, Tots's inscrutable scrutiny, Tots's triumph of possession. He
would never let her go, she felt. She was his beyond all dispute. He had
asked, and she had bestowed, not understanding what she was doing.

There could be no withdrawal now. She could not picture herself asking
for it, and she was sure he would not grant it if she did. He would only
laugh.

There fell a sudden silence in the church--a curious, unnatural silence.
It seemed to be growing very dark, and she wondered, panting, if it were
the darkness that so smothered her. With a sharp movement she lifted her
face, gasping as a half-drowned person gasps. And everywhere above,
around her, were tiny, dancing points of light.

* * * * *

"That's better," said Tots. "Don't be frightened. It's all right."

He rubbed her cheek softly, reassuringly, and then fell to chafing her
weak hands. Ruth lay back against a grave-mound and stared at him. He
was wonderfully gentle with her, almost like a woman. On her other side
one of her fellow bridesmaids was stooping over her, holding a glass of
water.

"You fainted from the heat," she explained. "But you are better now. I
shouldn't go back if I were you. It's just over."

With a sense of shame Ruth withdrew her hand from Tots.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Nonsense!" said Tots kindly. "Nobody's blamin' you, my child. It's this
infernal heat. You stay