ground, out of the vacancy, forming before his horror-stricken eyes.
And then there rose that cry which everybody could hear--which paralysed
the bridal procession and brought the clergyman startled out of the vestry,
and thrilled the careless lookers-on. "He has a wife living. She is
living, and she is here!" Had he heard these words before in a dream?
Had he known all along that he would hear them, ringing in his ears on
his wedding day? "His wife is living--and she is here!"

"What is it? what is it?" cried the wedding guests, crowding upon each
other, those who were nearest at least, while those at the end of the
procession paused with the smile on their lips to stare and wonder at
the sudden disturbance. Chatty was the most self-possessed of all. She
said softly: "Lizzie, Lizzie! Something has happened to her," and put
out her disengaged hand in its white glove to raise her from her knees.

"Miss Chatty, it's you that something has happened to--Oh stop, oh stop!
there she is! Don't--don't let Miss Chatty go away with him, don't let
her go away with him!" Lizzie cried.

"The woman is mad!" said some one behind. And so it might have been
thought; when suddenly those immediately following who had closed up
behind Chatty heard the bridegroom's voice, extremely agitated, yet with
a nervous firmness, say audibly: "It is not true. Lizzie, the woman you
speak of is dead. I know for certain that she is dead."

"Look there!" the intruder cried.

And he turned round in the sight of them all, the bride half turning too
with the voluntary impulse, and saw behind the sea of anxious wondering
faces another, which seemed to float in a mist of horror, from under the
half-lifted cloud of a gray veil. He saw this face; and the rest of the
wedding guests saw his, blanched with dread and misery, and knew every
one that the marriage was stopped, and Chatty no wife, and he a
dishonoured man.

Her eyes had followed his, she had not looked at him, but still held his
arm, giving him a support he was incapable of giving her. The face in
the background was not unknown to Chatty. She remembered it well, and
with what a compunction of pity she had looked at it when she met that
poor creature on the road at home, and wanted in her heart to take the
lost one to her mother. She did not understand at all what was going on
about her, nor what Mrs. Warrender meant, who came closely up behind,
and took hold of her arm, detaching her from Dick. "