CHAPTER IV
Faith was married at nine o'clock the following morning. It was raining hard, and as she stood beside the Beggar Man in the dreary registry office she watched the raindrops chasing one another down the window.
The old dream feeling was upon her again, and she could not believe that all this was really happening. The monotonous voice of the man who was marrying them sounded a long way off. The Beggar Man's hand in hers was the only real thing in life, and she clung to it with the desperate feeling that without it she would collapse and fall off the edge of the world.
She wore the same shabby costume in which she had gone each day to the factory, and she had a queer sort of feeling that this was not a bit as she had always imagined a wedding to be. There was no satin frock, no coloured confetti, no wonderful music.
What would Peg think? In her heart Faith was a little afraid of what her friend would think. The clasp of the Beggar Man's hand suddenly relaxed about her own, and she looked up with scared eyes. He was smiling.
"It's all over," he said. "We're married. You've just got to sign your name."
Faith said "Oh!" She blinked her eyes as if she had been asleep.
She had always thought that directly you were married, you felt quite different, but no wonderful metamorphosis had come about so far. She felt just herself, save for a dull sort of nervous headache.
She signed her name on the line pointed out to her and stood aimlessly holding the pen. The man who had married them was filling in a form and the Beggar Man was watching him.
Faith glanced down at her left hand. A brand new gold ring shone on her third finger. She spread her hand out and stared at it.