It lacked only fifteen minutes to the ceremony now. The two bridegrooms with the guests and the bishop had arrived and were waiting downstairs. Everything was in readiness for the hour.
The few wedding guests whispered to each other when Cora entered that she was the palest, most frightened-looking bride they had ever seen. What was it that could be preying upon her mind upon such an occasion as this?
But, they added kindly enough, that it was no wonder, for after her two former fateful wedding days who could blame her for being nervous and apprehensive of disaster.
She came in quietly enough, with downcast eyes, with her aunt, for the wedding was to be quite informal, the ceremony being performed first for the elder couple.
Frank Laurier was there looking quite as pale and troubled as his bride, but again the guests excused his perturbation, whispering:
“He is afraid something is going to happen.”
A sort of undefined dread of evil pervaded the air.
The bishop arose and opened his book as the elder couple moved in front of him, and the happiness on those two fine faces, the chastened happiness of reunion after long grief and pain—almost dissipated the lowering cloud of presentiment over every spirit.
Brief questions were asked, clear responses made, and the ring slipped over the bride’s slender finger, token of a union never to be broken “until death do us part.”
Kisses, congratulations, tears, and smiles, for the happy pair, then they moved aside for the others with a prayer in their hearts that these two might not sail forth upon such stormy seas of matrimonial disaster as they had done in ignorant youth.