d arrogant, he stood on his
altar-steps, and his hands were crossed over his portly stomach. On
either side of him the plaster angels bowed their heads and folded their
wings. Above him the great chancel window, with its panes of green and
yellow glass, jarred in an unutterable clash of colour; and the great
white stare of the chalky walls, and the earthen floor with its tub of
holy water, and the German prints absurdly representing the suffering of
Christ, bespoke the primitive belief, the coarse superstition, of which
the place was an immediate symbol. Alice and the doctor looked at each
other and smiled, but their thoughts were too firmly fixed on the actual
problem of their united lives to wander far in the most hidden ways of
the old world's psychical extravagances. What did it matter to them what
absurd usages the place they were in was put to?--they, at least, were
only making use of it as they might of any other public office--the
police-station, where inquiries are made concerning parcels left in
cabs; the Commissioner before whom an affidavit is made. And it served
its purpose as well as any of the others did theirs. The priest joined
their hands, Edward put the ring on Alice's finger, and the usual
prayers did no harm if they did no good; and having signed their names
in the register and bid good-bye to the Miss Brennans, they got into the
carriage, man and wife, their feet set for ever upon one path, their
interests and delights melted to one interest and one delight, their
separate troubles merged into one trouble that might or might not be
made lighter by the sharing; and penetrated by such thoughts they leaned
back on the blue cushions of the carriage, happy, and yet a little
frightened.

Rather than pass three hours waiting for a train at the little station
of Ardrahan, it had been arranged to spend the time driving to Athenry;
and, as the carriage rolled through the deliquefying country, the eyes
of the man and the woman rested half fondly, half regretfully, and
wholly pitifully, on all the familiar signs and the wild landmarks which
during so many years had grown into and become part of the texture of
their habitual thought; on things of which they would now have to wholly
divest themselves, and remember only as the background of their younger
lives. Through the streaming glass they could see the strip of bog; and
the half-naked woman, her soaked petticoat clinging about her red legs,
piling the wet pe