also fell behind.

Then some unknown force drew her as the magnet draws the needle, and she
looked towards the altar. A man was standing by the steps awaiting her.
She saw the free carriage of the great shoulders, the deep fire of the
blue eyes. And suddenly her heart gave a wild throb that was anguish, and
stood still.

Fletcher Hill's arm went round her. He held her for a second closely to
him--more closely than he had ever held her before. But--it came to her
later--he did not utter a single word. He only drew her on.

And so she came to Bill Warden waiting before the altar. They met--and
all the rest was blotted out.

She went through that service in a breathless wonderment, an amazement
that yet was strangely free from distress. For Bill Warden's hand clasped
hers throughout, save when Fletcher Hill took it from him for a moment to
give her away.

When it was over, and they knelt together in the streaming sunshine of
the morning, she felt as if they two were alone in an inner sanctuary
that was filled with the Love of God. Later, those sacred moments were
the holiest memory of her life....

Then a strong arm lifted and held her. She turned from the holy place
with a faint sigh of regret, turned to meet Fletcher Hill's eyes looking
at her with that in them which she was never to forget.

His voice was the first to break through the wonder-spell that bound her.

"Do you think you will ever manage to forgive me?" he said.

She turned swiftly from the arm that encircled her, and impulsively
she put her hands upon his shoulders, offering him her lips. "Oh, I
don't--know--what--to say," she said, brokenly.

He bent and gravely kissed her. "My dear, there is nothing to be said so
far as I am concerned," he said. "If you are happy, I am satisfied."

It was briefly spoken, but it went straight to her heart. She clung to
him for a moment without words, and that was all the thanks she ever
offered him. For there was nothing to be said.

* * * * *

Very late on the evening of that wonderful day she sat with Bill Warden
on the edge of a rock overlooking a fertile valley of many waters in the
Blue Mountains, and heard, with her hand in his the amazing story of the
past few days, which had seemed to her so curiously dream-like.

"I fought hard against marrying you," Bill told her, with the smile she
had remembered for so long. "But he had me at every turn--simply rolled
me out and w