--I am indeed." Out of a window he caught sight of his wife's
coupe. "I'll take that down town," he said.

They descended together. In the hall he warned again, "Don't let your
luncheon spoil."

His foot on the carriage step, he questioned the coachman:--

"Did Mrs. Shelby catch her train?"

"Yes, sir," the man replied cheerfully. "I saw to that. A close
shave, though. I heard it pull out as we drove away."

"That was at what time?"

"One twenty-five, sir."

"No baggage?"

"Just hand satchels," put in the footman. "Mrs. Shelby said her trunks
weren't ready."

"Drive to Canon North's," directed the governor, jumping in. "He's
near the cathedral, you know."

The carriage jolted from cobbles to asphalt, rounded the looming
capitol with its chateau-like red roofs cut sharply against the pure
spring sky, grated the stones again, and halted at the canon's door.
The governor had the carriage door open before the footman could leap
down, and told the man that he would make his own inquiries.

The maid said that he had missed the clergyman by five minutes.
Possibly he could be found at the cathedral; perhaps at the Beverwyck
Club.

Shelby bade the coupe follow, and hurried on foot to the church, which
lifted its temporary wooden roof above the clustering episcopal
buildings near at hand. Two or three cabs waited at the curb, from one
of which fluttered a facetious knot of white ribbon tied to an
axletree. A smell of stale incense pervaded the vestibule. The
murmured words of a liturgy drifted down the long nave as he passed
within. North was reading the marriage service. Shelby bided
restively in the shadow of a column till the ceremony should end.

It was a small wedding party, merely a handful of onlookers, chiefly
teary women, grouped around the courageous pair, whose stanch "I will"
woke derisive echoes aloft.

"For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health
. . . till death do us part."

The youngsters pattered the awful words so glibly! Then North's prayer
went forth over their kneeling figures, they rose, took his hand an
instant, and turned to face an applauding world. The watcher pitied
them with a great pity.

Shelby followed North from chancel to vestry. The priest had laid
aside stole and surplice, and stood meditatively in his cassock as the
caller entered. Some men the cassock effeminates; not so North, whose
virile shape it emphasized, modelling his mu