He seemed his usual magnetic self as he stood there, backed by the flowers, his waving brown hair unsmoothed, the ruby-ring glowing dull-red against the dark leather of the book he held. Few felt it much a matter of regret that the humdrum and less personable Bishop of the Diocese should be away at convocation, since the young rector furnished the final esthetic touch to a perfectly appointed function. But Harry Sanderson was far from feeling the grave, alien, figure he appeared. In the past weeks he had waged a silent warfare with himself, bitterer because repressed. The strange new thing that had sprung up in him he had trampled mercilessly under. From the thought that he loved the promised wife of another, a quick, fastidious sense in him recoiled abashed. This painful struggle had been sharpened by his sense of Hugh's utter worthlessness. To that rustling assemblage, the man who was to make those solemn promises was David Stires' son, who had had his fling, turned over his new leaf becomingly, and was now offering substantial hostages to good repute. To him, Harry Sanderson, he was a flâneur, a marginless gambler in the futures of his father's favor and a woman's heart. He had shrunk from the ceremony, but circumstances had constrained him. There had been choice only between an evasion—to which he would not stoop—and a flat refusal, the result of which would have been a footless scandal—ugly town-talk—a sneer at himself and his motives—a quietus, possibly, to his whole career.
So now he stood to face a task which was doubly painful, but which he would go through with to the bitter end!
Only a moment Harry stood waiting; then the palm-screened musicians began the march, and Hugh took his place, animated and assured, looking the flushed and expectant bridegroom. At the same instant the chattering and hubbub ceased; Jessica, on the arm of the old man, erect but walking feebly with his cane, was advancing down the roped lane.
She was in simple white, the point-lace on the frock an heirloom. Her bronze hair was drawn low, hiding much of the disfiguring bandage, under which her lips were parted in a half-smile, human, intimate and eager, full of the hope and intoxication of living.
Harry's eyes dropped to the opened book, though he knew the office by heart. He spoke the time-worn adjuration with clear enunciation, with almost perfunctory distinctness. He did not look at Hugh.
"If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace." In the pause—the slightest pause—that turned the page, he felt an insane prompting to tear off his robes, to proclaim to this roomful of heated, gaping, fan-fluttering humanity, that he himself, a minister of the gospel, the celebrant of the rite, knew "just cause"!
The choking impulse passed. The periods rolled on—the long white glove was slipped from the hand, the ring put on the finger, and the pair, whom God and Harry Sanderson had joined together, were kneeling on the white satin prie-dieu with bowed heads under the final invocation. As they knelt, choir voices rose:
"O perfect love, all human thought transcending,
Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne—"
Then, while the music lingered, the hush of the room broke in a confused murmur; the white ribbon-wound ropes were let down, and a voluble wave of congratulators swept over the spot. In a moment more Harry found himself laying off his robes in the next room.