all, Christine,--it's surely over and done
with. It's not Palmer's past that concerns you now; it's his future with
you, isn't it?"

Christine had finally adjusted her veil. A band of duchesse lace rose
like a coronet from her soft hair, and from it, sweeping to the end of
her train, fell fold after fold of soft tulle. She arranged the coronet
carefully with small pearl-topped pins. Then she rose and put her hands
on Sidney's shoulders.

"The simple truth is," she said quietly, "that I might hold Palmer if
I cared--terribly. I don't. And I'm afraid he knows it. It's my pride
that's hurt, nothing else."

And thus did Christine Lorenz go down to her wedding.

Sidney stood for a moment, her eyes on the letter she held. Already, in
her new philosophy, she had learned many strange things. One of them was
this: that women like Grace Irving did not betray their lovers; that the
code of the underworld was "death to the squealer"; that one played the
game, and won or lost, and if he lost, took his medicine. If not Grace,
then who? Somebody else in the hospital who knew her story, of course.
But who? And again--why?

Before going downstairs, Sidney placed the letter in a saucer and set
fire to it with a match. Some of the radiance had died out of her eyes.

The Street voted the wedding a great success. The alley, however, was
rather confused by certain things. For instance, it regarded the awning
as essentially for the carriage guests, and showed a tendency to duck
in under the side when no one was looking. Mrs. Rosenfeld absolutely
refused to take the usher's arm which was offered her, and said she
guessed she was able to walk up alone.

Johnny Rosenfeld came, as befitted his position, in a complete
chauffeur's outfit of leather cap and leggings, with the shield that was
his State license pinned over his heart.

The Street came decorously, albeit with a degree of uncertainty as to
supper. Should they put something on the stove before they left, in case
only ice cream and cake were served at the house? Or was it just as well
to trust to luck, and, if the Lorenz supper proved inadequate, to sit
down to a cold snack when they got home?

To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet and Anna, the
wedding was Sidney--Sidney only. He watched her first steps down the
aisle, saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence, watched
the swinging of her young figure in its gauzy white as she passed him
and went