"The woman is mad!" said some one behind. And so it might have been thought; when suddenly those immediately following who had closed up behind Chatty heard the bridegroom's voice, extremely agitated, yet with a nervous firmness, say audibly: "It is not true. Lizzie, the woman you speak of is dead. I know for certain that she is dead."
"Look there!" the intruder cried.
And he turned round in the sight of them all, the bride half turning too with the voluntary impulse, and saw behind the sea of anxious wondering faces another, which seemed to float in a mist of horror, from under the half-lifted cloud of a gray veil. He saw this face; and the rest of the wedding guests saw his, blanched with dread and misery, and knew every one that the marriage was stopped, and Chatty no wife, and he a dishonoured man.
Her eyes had followed his, she had not looked at him, but still held his arm, giving him a support he was incapable of giving her. The face in the background was not unknown to Chatty. She remembered it well, and with what a compunction of pity she had looked at it when she met that poor creature on the road at home, and wanted in her heart to take the lost one to her mother. She did not understand at all what was going on about her, nor what Mrs. Warrender meant, who came closely up behind, and took hold of her arm, detaching her from Dick. "Chatty, let us get home, my darling. Come, come with me. Theo will take us home," the mother said.
Then Chatty, turning round wondering, saw her bridegroom's face. She looking at him earnestly for the moment, holding his arm tighter, and then said with a strange, troubled, yet clear voice: "Dick—what does it mean? Dick!"
"Come home, come home, my dearest," cried Mrs. Warrender, trying to separate them.
"Come back to the vestry, Cavendish," cried Theo with threatening tones; and then arose a loud murmur of other suggestions, a tumult most unusual, horrifying, yet exciting to the spectators who closed around. The clergyman came out still in his surplice, hurrying towards the spot "Whatever the interruption is," he said, "don't stay there, for Heaven's sake. Come back if you will, or go home, but don't let us have a disturbance in the church."
"Chatty, go with my mother. For God's sake, Frances, get them all away."
"I will not leave Dick," said Chatty in her soft voice, "until I know what it is." She who was so yielding and so simple, she turned round with her own impulse the unhappy young man whose arm she held, and who seemed for the moment incapable of any action of his own, and led him back towards the place from which they had come. The horror had not penetrated sufficiently into Chatty's mind to do more than pale a little the soft colour in her face. She had grown very serious, looking straight before her, taking no notice of anything. They all followed like so many sheep in her train, the ladies crowding together, Dick's sister at his other hand, Mrs. Warrender close behind, Lizzie carried along with them, now crying bitterly and wringing her hands, utterly cowed by finding herself in the midst of this perfumed and rustling crowd, amid which her flushed and tear-stained face and humble dress showed to such strange disadvantage. Unnoticed by the rest, Geoff, who had wriggled out of the mass, pursued down the farther aisle a hurrying flying figure and stopped her, holding her fast.
In the vestry Chatty began to fail a little. She relinquished Dick's arm, and stood trembling, supporting herself by the table. "I want him," she said, faltering a little, "mamma, to tell me—what it means. There is something—to find out. Dick," with a tremulous smile, "you have concealed something. It is not that I don't trust you,—but tell me"—Then, still smiling, she murmured, "Lizzie—and that—that poor—girl."