ed
with agitation. As best man, he would be standing beside the altar. She
looked slowly, deferring in her certainty.

And then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she
were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she
approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang
of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly null,
desert.

The bridegroom and the groom's man had not yet come. There was a
growing consternation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She
could not bear it that the bride should arrive, and no groom. The
wedding must not be a fiasco, it must not.

But here was the bride's carriage, adorned with ribbons and cockades.
Gaily the grey horses curvetted to their destination at the
church-gate, a laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of
all laughter and pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown open, to
let out the very blossom of the day. The people on the roadway murmured
faintly with the discontented murmuring of a crowd.

The father stepped out first into the air of the morning, like a
shadow. He was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that
was touched with grey. He waited at the door of the carriage patiently,
self-obliterated.

In the opening of the doorway was a shower of fine foliage and flowers,
a whiteness of satin and lace, and a sound of a gay voice saying:

'How do I get out?'

A ripple of satisfaction ran through the expectant people. They pressed
near to receive her, looking with zest at the stooping blond head with
its flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was
reaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden foaming
rush, and the bride like a sudden surf-rush, floating all white beside
her father in the morning shadow of trees, her veil flowing with
laughter.

'That's done it!' she said.

She put her hand on the arm of her care-worn, sallow father, and
frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet.
Her father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more
careworn, mounted the steps stiffly, as if his spirit were absent; but
the laughing mist of the bride went along with him undiminished.

And no bridegroom had arrived! It was intolerable for her. Ursula, her
heart strained with anxiety, was watching the hill beyond; the white,
descending road, that should give sight of him. There was a carriage.
It