Michael was saying the words, "to love and to cherish, until death us do part."
At the word "death" Margaret's throat tightened. Something seemed to almost choke her. The words made her visualize the blood-soaked fields of Flanders. Weak tears filled her eyes; the loudness of her heart's beating made Michael's next vow, "according to God's holy ordinance," almost inaudible. The din of battle thundered in her brain. Death was going to part them almost directly; it was standing behind them now; it had been coming nearer and nearer for the last four months; it was only waiting until Michael had left her, until she was no longer near him. Like an avalanche crushing down upon her from a great height, the terror of death swept over her. Just as a shot from a rifle, or the vibration of a body of men marching under a precipice of loosened snow, will bring it down and cover them, the words "until death us do part" had overwhelmed Margaret.
Then a strange thing happened. As Michael said proudly and distinctly, "And thereto I give thee my troth," Margaret saw that he was surrounded by a brilliant light. He stood in the centre of long shafts of sunshine; they played round his head like the rays of Aton. Her terror of death vanished as swiftly as it had come. This was the light which guarded Michael in battle. A super-elation dispersed the thought of the brief married life which might be hers, that she might be stepping into widowhood even while she repeated her vows.
Bewilderment made her forget her part in the ceremony. She felt, but did not see the clergyman take her hand from Michael's. He separated them for a moment and then put her hand on the top of Michael's. He whispered something to her. Then she remembered her part, and said slowly and clearly after him the same words which Michael had repeated. The words "until death us do part" were said as she might have said them in pre-war days.
After that she was free from all nervousness and all sense of unreality. She saw Michael take the ring from the clergyman's fingers and hold it in his own hand. She smiled to him happily, as she saw his expression of relief and tenderness. In one moment more they would be man and wife; no distance or grief could change that.
When they knelt together for the first time as man and wife, and listened to the words of the beautiful prayer that they might "ever remain in perfect love and peace together," Margaret's happiness made her prayer a song of praise. If it was ordained that Michael was to be spared to her, how simple and natural a thing it would be for ever to remain in perfect love and peace together! Loving each other as they did, that would not be one of their difficulties. It was so restful to kneel side by side with Michael, listening to the gentle and solemn words, that she would have liked the prayer to go on for a long time. Her nervous condition made her apprehensive. Here, in the quiet church, which lay right in the heart-beat of the city, there was a divine sense of security.
Their heads were bent together; their arms were almost touching; their heart-beats were in unison; their minds were one.
But the prayer was finished. Michael's hand had clasped hers again; he was far more conscious of his part in the ceremony than she was of hers. He held her hand as if it was his world, the kingdom he had come into, while his eyes expressed his emotion and gratitude.
As the words "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," and "I pronounce you man and wife," echoed through the chancel, Michael Ireton and Hadassah gave a pent-up sigh of relief.
When the clergyman turned to the altar and read aloud the sixty-seventh Psalm—Michael had requested it in preference to the hundred and twenty-eighth, which is perhaps the more usual—Hadassah saw the bride and bridegroom smile happily to each other. They smiled, because Michael had often read the Psalm to Margaret and remarked on its similarity to the prayers of Akhnaton.