"Are you not coming down to the ceremony?" asked her husband. It went very hard with him to deceive the wife of his youth, but there seemed no other way to deal with her in the present situation.
"The ceremony?" She arose with alacrity. "What do you mean? Has Harrington come, and has he explained everything? It has turned out just as I supposed it would."
She stopped in front of the glass and smoothed her hair. She had arrayed herself in her best immediately after breakfast.
"I should think it was time an apology was due from you, Mr. Winthrop." Madam Winthrop stood haughtily in the middle of the room, aware that her small figure was elegant, and feeling that she had entire command of the situation. There was a becoming triumph in the brightness of her eyes and the set of her cameo lips.
"The wedding is to be at once," said her husband gravely, motioning her to precede him.
"What was Harrington's explanation?" she whispered, eager as any girl, now that she thought she had come off triumphant.
"There is no time to talk about it now," said her husband, again motioning her down the stairs.
She had a mind to make another stand before his grave authority, but in reality she was too much relieved from the awful strain she had been under during the past twenty-four hours for her to care to hold out against him longer. She went quietly down the stairs and took the place Mrs. Van Rensselaer most ungraciously assigned her. There was in that lady's eye something unquelled which gave the bridegroom's mother some uneasiness and took her mind from the ceremony, so that she failed to notice as the little procession passed by her almost immediately, that Harrington was not a part of it, and that her youngest son occupied the place of the bridegroom.
It was not until the clear voice rang out in the words, "I do," that something in the boyish accents made her look up and stretch her neck to see her son. How strange that Harrington's voice should sound so exactly like Charles's! But some one was standing so that the bridegroom's face could not be seen by her.
The little bride, with downcast eyes and palpitating heart, stood demurely by his side, her cold hands trembling within the gloves her step-mother had brought from New York for the occasion. One lay upon a fine black coat-sleeve that had put itself within reaching distance. She had not put the glove there herself. A hand, a strong, warm hand, had taken it and put it there, a hand that against her will had sent a strange thrill through her, and left her faint and frightened. That had been at the foot of the stairs, and she had walked with it thus down the room. She had not looked up to see to whom that sleeve belonged. She believed she knew, and it sent no pleasant thought to her heart. Yet she had to acknowledge that the arm had steadied her and kept her from stumbling, and had guided her safely into the vacant spot in front of the minister.