ou, Alice, indeed I do, for
then there would be no excuse, and I could be a good woman. You won't
hate me too much, will you, Alice? I have made a lot of good
resolutions, and they shall be kept some day.'

'Some day! You don't mean that you are again--'

'No; but I've a lover. It is dreadfully sinful, and if I died I should
go straight to hell. I know all that. I wish I were going to be married,
like you! For then one is out of temptation. Haven't you a kind word for
me? Won't you kiss me and tell me you don't despise me?'

'Of course I'll kiss you, May; and I am sure that one of these days you
will--'

Alice could say no more; and the girls kissed and cried in each other's
arms, and the group was a sad allegory of poor humanity's triumph, and
poor humanity's more than piteous failures. At last they went
downstairs, and in the hall May showed Alice the beautiful
wedding-present she had bought her, and the girl did not say that she
had sold her hunter to buy it.

XXIX

At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, '84, the rain fell
persistently in the midst of a profound silence. The trees stood stark
in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the
falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.

Not a living thing was to be seen except the wet sheep, nor did anything
stir either within or without till an outside car, one seat overturned
to save the cushions from the wet, came careering up the avenue. There
was a shaggy horse and a wild-looking driver in a long, shaggy frieze
ulster. Even now, at the last moment, Alice expected the drawing-room
door to open and her mother to come rushing out to wish her good-bye.
But Mrs. Barton remained implacable, and after laying one more kiss on
her sister's pale cheek, Alice, in a passionate flood of tears, was
driven away.

In streaming mackintoshes, and leaning on dripping umbrellas, she found
her husband, and Gladys and Zoe Brennan, waiting for her in the porch of
the church.

'Did you ever see such weather?' said Zoe.

'Isn't it dreadful!' said Gladys.

'It was good of you to come,' said Alice.

'It was indeed!' said the bridegroom.

'What nonsense!' said Zoe. 'We were only too pleased; and if to-day be
wet, to-morrow and the next and the next will be sunshine.

And thanking Zoe inwardly for this most appropriate remark, the party
ascended the church toward the altar-rails, where Father Shannon was
awaiting them. Large, pompous, an