The bride could scarce be seen though her figure looked dainty in her simple white gown; but her golden head was hidden beneath a filmy veil of delicate Mechlin lace, which fell right over her face and far back to the edge of her gown.
But every one could see milor well, for his dark head towered above those of the spectators. And he held his head very erect, some folk thinking that on this occasion a man should look less proud and certainly less defiant. He was gorgeously clad in surcoat and vest of delicate ivory-tinted silk, with exquisite embroideries of gold and silver which the gaffers thought must have cost a mint of money. But then English milors were all so rich, and this one—so 'twas said—was one of the richest amongst all; he certainly was one of the most handsome. Goodly to look at was the verdict of the women, with his dark hair innocent of those monstrous perruques which the jeunesse dorée of Paris and Versailles had lately affected. He wore neither beard nor moustache and every one could see what a firm, strong mouth and jaw he had—an obstinate one murmured some of the ladies, a masterful one, sighed the others.
Mme. de Montespan enthroned on a velvet-covered armchair made vain attempts to draw his dark, deep-set eyes to hers.
But milor looked straight before him, and his arms were crossed over his broad chest. When Monseigneur kneeled at the foot of the altar and began to recite the first verse of the Introibe, milor knelt too, beside his bride, and buried his face in his hands.
M. and Mme. Legros clad in their Sunday best, knelt quite close to the bridal pair. Maman in rich puce-coloured brocade, her scanty locks hidden beneath a remarkable confection of lace was frequently mopping her eyes, the while M. Legros, master tailor to the Court of Paris, tried to conceal the inordinate pride which he felt at seeing his only child wedded to so great a lord.
Now Monseigneur bent his broad shoulders and sotto voce murmured the Confiteor. Rose Marie in the innocence of her heart prayed to the Virgin to make her quite, quite perfect, as good as my lord thought her to be, lest he be deceived and disappointed in her. She had not spoken to him alone again after that happy yet sad quarter of an hour when she had seen his proud head bent before her, and felt that unutterable pity for him, which so quickly then became unutterable love.
That his self-accusations were only the result of an over-sensitive conscience she firmly believed, and if in his early youth my lord had sinned as other young men sin from thoughtlessness and want of a guiding hand, who was she that she should judge him, now that he had honoured her with his love?
And as Monseigneur at the altar read the Holy Gospel wherein the Good God himself enjoins man and woman to cleave to one another, Rose Marie's whole heart went out to the man by her side, and the magnetism of her enthusiastic sacrifice of her whole self to him drew his dark eyes down to hers.
Michael, as in a dream, saw the exquisite white-clad figure close to him; never—he thought—had he beheld aught so lovely, so pure, so worthy of love. Then looking from her to the great altar before him, he saw through the moving clouds of incense phantom figures and objects from out his past.
There in that dark recess, beside the niche of that mitred saint, faces of men who had sneered at his misfortunes, the men of law who had plundered him, and a forest of outstretched palms, oily and smooth awaiting the bribes. There again high up in the groined roof, his companions in those far-off days in Flanders, faces red with the excesses of the day, hands soiled with the evil deeds of night; the miserable camp followers in the wake of a starving mercenary army, dissolute men and intemperate women; and all around him the poor, miserable scum of London, the men with whom he had herded, beasts like himself, no more human since wretchedness had killed all manhood in that perpetual, that degrading search after forgetfulness.