"Dearly beloved,—" said Simon Orts.
"Simon, you are not all base. I am helpless, Simon, utterly helpless. There was a Simon once would not have seen me weep. There was a Simon—"
"—we are gathered together here in the sight of God—"
"You cannot do it, Simon,—do I not know you to the marrow? Remember—not me—not the vain folly of my girlhood!—but do you remember the man you have been, Simon Orts!" Fiercely Lady Allonby caught him by the shoulder. "For you do remember! You do remember, don't you, Simon?"
The Vicar stared at her. "The man I have been," said Simon Orts, "yes!—the man I have been!" Something clicked in his throat with sharp distinctness.
"Upon my word," said Lord Rokesle, yawning, "this getting married appears to be an uncommonly tedious business."
Then Simon Orts laid aside his prayer-book and said: "I cannot do it, my
Lord. The woman's right."
She clapped her hands to her breast, and stood thus, reeling upon her feet. You would have thought her in the crisis of some physical agony; immediately she breathed again, deeply but with a flinching inhalation, as though the contact of the air scorched her lungs, and, swaying, fell. It was the Vicar who caught her as she fell.
"I entreat your pardon?" said Lord Rokesle, and without study of Lady Allonby's condition. This was men's business now, and over it Rokesle's brow began to pucker.
Simon Orts bore Lady Allonby to the settie. He passed behind it to arrange a cushion under her head, with an awkward, grudging tenderness; and then rose to face Lord Rokesle across the disordered pink fripperies.