He also looked for a moment closely into Dot's face, then very quietly he took her cold hand from Jack and drew it through his arm. She glanced at him with a momentary nervousness as Jack also fell behind.
Then some unknown force drew her as the magnet draws the needle, and she looked towards the altar. A man was standing by the steps awaiting her. She saw the free carriage of the great shoulders, the deep fire of the blue eyes. And suddenly her heart gave a wild throb that was anguish, and stood still.
Fletcher Hill's arm went round her. He held her for a second closely to him—more closely than he had ever held her before. But—it came to her later—he did not utter a single word. He only drew her on.
And so she came to Bill Warden waiting before the altar. They met—and all the rest was blotted out.
She went through that service in a breathless wonderment, an amazement that yet was strangely free from distress. For Bill Warden's hand clasped hers throughout, save when Fletcher Hill took it from him for a moment to give her away.
When it was over, and they knelt together in the streaming sunshine of the morning, she felt as if they two were alone in an inner sanctuary that was filled with the Love of God. Later, those sacred moments were the holiest memory of her life....
Then a strong arm lifted and held her. She turned from the holy place with a faint sigh of regret, turned to meet Fletcher Hill's eyes looking at her with that in them which she was never to forget.
His voice was the first to break through the wonder-spell that bound her.
"Do you think you will ever manage to forgive me?" he said.
She turned swiftly from the arm that encircled her, and impulsively she put her hands upon his shoulders, offering him her lips. "Oh, I don't—know—what—to say," she said, brokenly.