"Humph!" exclaimed the judge, and not another word was spoken during the drive.
It was a rather long one. The church selected for the performance of the marriage rites being St. John's, at the west end of the town, where the bridegroom and his friends were to meet the bride and her attendants.
They reached the church at last; the other carriages arrived a few seconds after them, and the whole party alighted and went in.
The bridegroom and his friends were already there. And the bridal procession formed and went up the middle aisle to the altar, where the bishop in his sacerdotal robes stood ready to perform the ceremony.
The bridal party formed before the altar, the bishop opened the book, and the ceremony commenced. It proceeded according to the ritual, and without the slightest deviation from commonplace routine.
When the bishop came to that part of the rites in which he utters the awful adjuration—"I require and charge you both, as ye shall answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that if any persons are joined together, otherwise than God's word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful,"—Bee, who was standing with her mother and father near the bridal circle, looked up at the bride.
Oh, could Claudia, loving another, loathing the bridegroom, kneel in that sacred church, before that holy altar, in the presence of God's minister, in the presence of God himself, hear that solemn adjuration, and persevere in her awful sin?
Yes, Claudia could! as tens of thousands, from ignorance, from insensibility, or from recklessness, have done before her; and as tens of thousands more, from the same causes, will do after her.
The ceremony proceeded until it reached the part where the ring is placed upon the bride's finger, and all went well enough until, as they were rising from the prayer of "Our Father," the bride happened to lower her hand, and the ring, which was too large for her finger, dropped off, and rolled away and passed out of sight.
The ceremony ended, and the ring was sought for; but could not be found then: and, I may as well tell you now, it has not been found yet.