Her bridegroom said not a word. Together they went into the tiny vestry and she was told to sign her name in a big book, which the bald-headed parson held open before her.
The prince also signed his name, and then kissed her on the forehead.
The clergyman also shook hands and it was all over.
She understood that she had been married by a special license, and that she was now legally and irretrievably the wife of Amédé Henri, Prince d'Orléans, de Bourgogne and several other places and dependencies abroad.
She also understood from what the bald-headed clergyman had spoken when he stood before them in the church and read the marriage service that she as the wife owed obedience to her husband in all things, for she had solemnly sworn so to do. She herself, body and soul and mind, her goods and chattels, her wealth and all belongings were from henceforth the property of her husband.
Yes, she had sworn to all that, willingly, and there was no going back on that, now or ever!
But, oh! how she wished it had been different!
Afterwards, when in the privacy of her own little room at Acol Court, she thought over the whole of that long and dismal day, she oft found herself wondering what it was through it all that had seemed so terrifying to her, so strange, so unreal.
Something had struck her as weird: something which she could not then define; but she was quite sure that it was not merely the unusual chilliness of that rainy summer's day, which had caused her to tremble so, when—in the vestry—her husband had taken her hand and kissed her.
She had then looked into his face, which—though the vestry was but ill lighted by a tiny very dusty window—she had never seen quite so clearly before, and then it was that that amazing sense of something awful and unreal had descended upon her like a clammy shroud.