Edith was delighted with the idea, and thus it was carried out in the way described.
The party was met at the chancel by Roy, accompanied by his best man and the clergyman, where the ceremony was impressively performed, after which the happy couple led the way from the church with those sweetest strains of Mendelssohn beating their melodious rhythm upon their ears and joyful hearts.
It was an occasion for only smiles and gladness; but, away in a dim corner of that vast edifice, there sat a solitary figure, with bowed head and pale face, over which—as there fell upon his ears those solemn words, "till death us do part"—hot tears streamed like rain.
The figure was Gerald Goddard. He had read the announcement of Edith's marriage in the papers, and, with an irresistible yearning to see her in her bridal robes, he had stolen into the church with the crowd, and hidden himself where he could see without being seen.
But the scene was too much for him, for, as he watched that peerless woman and her beautiful daughter move down the aisle, and listened to the reverent responses of the young couple, there came to him, with terrible force, the consciousness that if he had been true to the same vows which he had once taken upon himself he need not now have been shut out of this happy scene, like some lost soul shut out of heaven.
But no one heeded him; and, when the ceremony was over, he slipped away as secretly as he had come, and no one dreamed that the father of the beautiful bride had been an unbidden guest at her wedding.
In giving Edith to Roy Mrs. Stewart had begged that she need not be separated from her newly recovered treasure—that for the present, at least, they would make their home with her—or, rather, that they would take the house, which was to be a part of Edith's dowry, and allow her to remain with them as their guest.
This they were only too glad to do; therefore, after a delightful wedding trip through the West, they came back to their elegant home, where, with every luxury at their command, the future seemed to promise unlimited happiness.
Poor Louis Raymond had failed very rapidly during the spring months; indeed, he was not even able to attend the marriage of the girl for whom he had formed a strong attachment, and who had bestowed upon him many gracious attentions and services that had greatly brightened his last days. He passed quietly away only a few weeks after their return to New York.
One day, a couple of months after her marriage, Edith was about to step into her carriage, on coming out of a store on Broadway, where she had been shopping, when she was startled by excited shouts and cries directly across the street from her.