The party were all seated, and his the only vacant place.
It was like a hundred other weddings at which he had been; and, seeing the bride and bridegroom seated together as usual, and the pretty bridemaids tittering, as usual, and the gentle dullness lighted up with here and there a feeble jest, as usual, he could hardly realize that horrible things lay beneath the surface of all this snowy bride-cake, and flowers, and white veils, and weak jocoseness.
He stared, bowed, and sunk into his place like a man in a dream.
Bridemaids became magnetically conscious that an incongruous element had entered; so they tittered. At what does sweet silly seventeen not titter?
Knives and forks clattered, champagne popped, and Dr. Amboyne was more perplexed and miserable than he had ever been. He had never encountered a more hopeless situation.
Presently Lally came and touched the bridegroom. He apologized, and left the room a moment.
Lally then told him to be on his guard, for the fat doctor knew something. He had come tearing up in a fly, and had been dreadfully put out when he found Miss Carden was gone to the church.
“Well, but he might merely wish to accompany her to the church: he is an old friend.”
Lally shook his head and said there was much more in it than that; he could tell by the man's eye, and his uneasy way. “Master, dear, get out of this, for heaven's sake, as fast as ye can.”
“You are right; go and order the carriage round, as soon as the horses can be put to.”