he paused and the tears came. She repeated in a voice that went to the
hearts of all the staring, excited spectators, "I am sorry--for us both."

"God bless you, Chatty! God bless you, my own love! And must we part
so?" cried poor Dick, falling down upon his knees, and sobbing over the
hands which held his. He was altogether broken down. He knew there was
nothing to be said to him, or for him. He was without help or hope. For
a moment even Warrender, who was the most severe, could say nothing
in sight of this lamentable scene,--the bride and her bridegroom, who
had been pronounced man and wife half-an-hour before, and now were
parting,--perhaps for ever,--two people between whom there was now no
bond, whose duty would be to keep apart. Chatty stooped over him, whom
she must see no more, her white veil fell over him covering them both,
she laid her pale cheek against his. "It is not our fault. We are very
unfortunate. We must have patience," she said.

He kept on kneeling there, following her with his eyes, while her
brother and her mother led her away, then with a groan covered his face
with his hands. Was this the end?

CHAPTER XLV.

After this extraordinary and terrible event there were a great many
conferences and explanations, which did little good as may be understood.
Dick's life--the part of it which had passed during his absence, the
wanderyear which had brought such painful consequences--was laid entirely
open, both to his own family and all the Warrenders. There was nothing
in it to be ashamed of--still he had wanted to keep that episode to
himself, and the consequence, of course, was that every detail became
known. He had thrown himself into the wild, disorderly population on the
edge of civilisation: people who lived out of reach of law, and so long
as they were not liable to the tribunal of Judge Lynch, did no harm in
the eyes of the community. There he had fallen in love, being clean and
of pure mind, and disposed to think everybody like himself, and married
in haste--a girl whom his tiresome proprieties had wearied at once, and
who did not in the most rudimentary way comprehend what to him was the
foundation of life. He shuddered, but could give no coherent account of
that time. She left him, inclosing him her "marriage lines" and a paper
declaring him to be free. And from that time until she had been brought
face to face with him in the vestry he had never seen her again. His old
father, whom