e when they were
brides. A bride's happy time is as much advertised as a successful
soap.... But I--I--well, I'm not a bride any longer--that's all. I've
been married a whole year!"

"A whole year!" Mrs. Delancy spoke the word with the fine scorn of one
who was looking forward complacently to the celebration of a golden
wedding anniversary in the near future.

Cicily, however, was impervious to the sarcasm of the repetition.

"Yes," she repeated gloomily, "a whole year. Think of it.... And all the
women in my family live to be seventy. Mamma would have been alive if
she hadn't been drowned. A good many live to be eighty. Why, you're not
seventy yet. Poor dear! You may have ten or a dozen more years of it!"

Mrs. Delancy was actually horrified by her niece's commiseration.

"Cicily," she eluded, "you must not speak in that manner. I've been
happily married. You--"

The afflicted bride was not to be turned aside from her woe.

"I'm perfectly wretched," she announced, fiercely. "Auntie, Charles is a
bigamist!"

"Good Lord!" Mrs. Delancy ejaculated with pious fervor, and sank back
limply in her chair, too much overcome for further utterance. Then, in a
flash of memory, she beheld again the facts as she had known them as to
her niece's courtship and marriage. The girl and Charles Hamilton had
been sweethearts as children. The boy had developed into the man without
ever apparently wavering in his one allegiance. Cicily, too, had had
eyes for no other suitor, even when many flocked about her, drawn by the
fascination of her vivacious beauty and the little graces of her form
and the varied brilliance of her moods. It was because of the
steadfastness of the two lovers in their devotion that Mr. and Mrs.
Delancy had permitted themselves to be persuaded into granting consent
for an early marriage. It had seemed to them that the constancy of the
pair was sufficiently established. They believed that here was indeed
material for the making of an ideal union. Their belief seemed justified
by the facts in the outcome, for bride and groom showed all the
evidences of rapturous happiness in their union. It had only been
revealed during this present visit to the household by the aunt that,
somehow, things were not as they should be between these two erstwhile
so fond.... And now, at last, the truth was revealed in all its
revolting nudity. Mrs. Delancy recalled, with new understanding of its
fatal significance, the aloof manner re