e possessingly, as he
said, very clearly:

"I, Michael Amory, take thee, Margaret Lampton, to be my wedded wife."

He tightened his grasp on her hand. Its dearness and magnetism
affected her. Her feeling of somnolence vanished. Things became real,
tremendously real and wonderful.

Michael was saying the words, "to love and to cherish, until death us
do part."

At the word "death" Margaret's throat tightened. Something seemed to
almost choke her. The words made her visualize the blood-soaked fields
of Flanders. Weak tears filled her eyes; the loudness of her heart's
beating made Michael's next vow, "according to God's holy ordinance,"
almost inaudible. The din of battle thundered in her brain. Death was
going to part them almost directly; it was standing behind them now; it
had been coming nearer and nearer for the last four months; it was only
waiting until Michael had left her, until she was no longer near him.
Like an avalanche crushing down upon her from a great height, the
terror of death swept over her. Just as a shot from a rifle, or the
vibration of a body of men marching under a precipice of loosened snow,
will bring it down and cover them, the words "until death us do part"
had overwhelmed Margaret.

Then a strange thing happened. As Michael said proudly and distinctly,
"And thereto I give thee my troth," Margaret saw that he was surrounded
by a brilliant light. He stood in the centre of long shafts of
sunshine; they played round his head like the rays of Aton. Her terror
of death vanished as swiftly as it had come. This was the light which
guarded Michael in battle. A super-elation dispersed the thought of
the brief married life which might be hers, that she might be stepping
into widowhood even while she repeated her vows.

Bewilderment made her forget her part in the ceremony. She felt, but
did not see the clergyman take her hand from Michael's. He separated
them for a moment and then put her hand on the top of Michael's. He
whispered something to her. Then she remembered her part, and said
slowly and clearly after him the same words which Michael had repeated.
The words "until death us do part" were said as she might have said
them in pre-war days.

After that she was free from all nervousness and all sense of
unreality. She saw Michael take the ring from the clergyman's fingers
and hold it in his own hand. She smiled to him happily, as she saw his
expression of relief and tende