"My God," he thought, "HAVE I got the ring?"--and
once more he went through the bridegroom's convulsive
gesture.
Then, in a moment, May was beside him, such radiance
streaming from her that it sent a faint warmth
through his numbness, and he straightened himself and
smiled into her eyes.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here," the
Rector began . . .
The ring was on her hand, the Bishop's benediction
had been given, the bridesmaids were a-poise to resume
their place in the procession, and the organ was showing
preliminary symptoms of breaking out into the
Mendelssohn March, without which no newly-wedded
couple had ever emerged upon New York.
"Your arm--I SAY, GIVE HER YOUR ARM!" young
Newland nervously hissed; and once more Archer became
aware of having been adrift far off in the unknown.
What was it that had sent him there, he
wondered? Perhaps the glimpse, among the anonymous
spectators in the transept, of a dark coil of hair under a
hat which, a moment later, revealed itself as belonging
to an unknown lady with a long nose, so laughably unlike
the person whose image she had evoked that he asked
himself if he were becoming subject to hallucinations.
And now he and his wife were pacing slowly down
the nave, carried forward on the light Mendelssohn
ripples, the spring day beckoning to them through widely
opened doors, and Mrs. Welland's chestnuts, with big
white favours on their frontlets, curvetting and showing
off at the far end of the canvas tunnel.
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