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When her brother joined them at the end of the week a dullness of despair had come upon her. Again she saw herself trapped and helpless, lacking even the spirit to attempt escape. She greeted Jack almost abstractedly, and he observed her throughout the evening with anxiety in his eyes. When it was over he drew her aside for a moment as she was bidding him good-night.

“What’s the matter, little ‘un? What’s wrong?” he whispered, with his arm about her.

She clung to him for an instant with a closeness that was passionate. But, “It’s nothing, Jack,” she whispered back. “It’s nothing.”

Then Fletcher Hill came up to them, and they separated. Adela and Dot went up to bed, and the two men were left alone.

* * * * *

So at length the great day dawned, and nothing had happened. The only news that had reached them was a remark overheard by Adela in the dining-room, to the effect that Harley had thrown up his post and gone.

Dot dressed for her wedding with a dazed sense of unreality. Her attire was of the simplest. She wore a hat instead of a veil. It was to be a quiet ceremony in the early morning, for neither she nor Hill desired any unnecessary parade. When she descended the stairs with Adela, Jack was the only person awaiting her in the hall.

He looked at her searchingly as she came down to him, then without a word he took her in his arms and kissed her white face. She saw that he was moved, and wondered within herself at her own utter lack of emotion. Ever since she had lain against Bill Warden’s breast, the wild sweet rapture of his hold had seemed to paralyze in her all other feeling. She knew only the longing for his presence, the utter emptiness of a world that held him not.

She drove to the church with her hand in Jack’s, Adela talking incessantly the whole way while they two sat in silence. It was a bare building in the heart of the town, but its bareness did not convey any chill to her. She was already too numbly cold for that.

She went up the aisle between Jack and Adela, because the latter good-naturedly remarked that she might as well have as much support as she could get. But before they reached the altar-steps Fletcher Hill came to meet them, and Adela dropped behind.

He also looked for a moment closely into Dot’s face, then very quietly he took her cold hand from Jack and drew it through his arm. She glanced at him with a momentary nervousness as Jack also fell behind.

Then some unknown force drew her as the magnet draws the needle, and she looked towards the altar. A man was standing by the steps awaiting her. She saw the free carriage of the great shoulders, the deep fire of the blue eyes. And suddenly her heart gave a wild throb that was anguish, and stood still.

Fletcher Hill’s arm went round her. He held her for a second closely to him–more closely than he had ever held her before. But–it came to her later–he did not utter a single word. He only drew her on.

And so she came to Bill Warden waiting before the altar. They met–and all the rest was blotted out.

She went through that service in a breathless wonderment, an amazement that yet was strangely free from distress. For Bill Warden’s hand clasped hers throughout, save when Fletcher Hill took it from him for a moment to give her away.

When it was over, and they knelt together in the streaming sunshine of the morning, she felt as if they two were alone in an inner sanctuary that was filled with the Love of God. Later, those sacred moments were the holiest memory of her life….