“Haven’t seen him.”
“Then they’re probably together, or he may be coming on with Sir Robert and Lady Rawson. They’re not here yet, are they? What on earth can Sir Robert have wanted him for this morning? Horribly inconsiderate of him! Goodness, here’s Grace! Have you told the vicar that Roger hasn’t come? Then you’d better do so.”
She resumed her place as the bride advanced on her father’s arm, looking like a white ghost in her gleaming satin robe, with the filmy veil shrouding her bent head and her fair face.
“What’s the matter?” whispered the second brides maid.
“Nothing. S—sh!” answered Winnie, and breathed a silent thanksgiving as the choir struck up the hymn and began slowly to advance up the aisle, the bridal procession following. But her heart sank as she saw her brother hurry along the south aisle and out at the side door, evidently in the hope of meeting the tardy bridegroom.
Where could he be? And why hadn’t Austin Starr arrived? Not that Starr’s absence was anything extraordinary, for his exacting profession rendered him a socially erratic being. It was for that very reason that he had refused to fill the office of best man.
The hymn came to an end, the choir stood in their stalls, the bridal party halted at the chancel and there was a horrible pause, punctuated by the uneasy whispers exchanged by the guests.
The vicar came forward at length and proposed an adjournment to the vestry. He was no ordinary cleric, but a man with a fine, forceful, and magnetic personality, endowed, moreover, with consummate tact and good feeling; in brief, the Reverend Joseph Iverson was—and is—a Christian and gentleman in every sense of those often misused words.
“We can wait more comfortably in here,” he announced cheerily, as he brought forward a rush-bottomed chair for the bride, and in fatherly fashion, with a compelling hand on her shoulder, placed her in it.
“There, sit you down, and don’t be distressed, my dear child. I’m quite sure there’s no cause for alarm. Anyone—even a bridegroom—may be excused for losing his way in such a fog as this that has descended upon us. That’s the explanation of his absence, depend upon it. And he will arrive in another minute or two—in a considerable fluster, I’ll be bound, poor lad!”