And when Bishop Brent placed her little hand in that of his old college friend, and pressed them tenderly together, he felt, looking at the heavenly light that beamed from her sweet eyes, that not even death itself could part her fond soul from that of the man whom she loved, and who loved her so purely and faithfully in God's sight. Thus, when pronouncing the words--"Those whom God hath joined together, let no man. put asunder!" he was deeply conscious that for once at least in the troublous and uncertain ways of the modern world, the holy bond of wedlock was approved of in such wise as to be final and eternal.
Away in London, on this same marriage day, Lady Roxmouth, formerly Mrs. Fred Vancourt, sat at luncheon in her sumptuously furnished house in Park Lane, and looked across the table at her husband, while he lazily sipped a glass of wine.
"That ridiculous girl Maryllia has married her parson by this time I suppose,"--she said--"Of course it's perfectly scandalous. Lady Beaulyon was quite disgusted when she heard of it--such an alliance for a Vancourt! And Mr. and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay tell me that the man Walden is quite an objectionable person--positively boorish! It's dreadful really! But who could ever have imagined she would recover from that hunting spill? Wentworth Glynn said she was crippled for life. He told me so himself."
"Well, he was wrong evidently,"--said Roxmouth, curtly. "English surgeons are very clever, but they are not always infallible. This time an Italian has beaten them."
"Perhaps she was not so seriously injured as the local man at St. Rest made her out to be,"--pursued her ladyship reflectively.
Roxmouth said nothing. She studied his face with amused scrutiny.
"Perhaps it was another little ruse to get rid of you and your wooing,"--she went on--"Dear me! What an extraordinary contempt Maryllia always had for you to be sure!"
He moved restlessly, and she smiled--a hard little smile.
"I guess you're hankering after her still!" she hinted.
"Your remarks are in rather bad taste,"--he rejoined, coldly, helping himself to another glass of wine.
She rose from her chair, and came round the table to where he sat, laying a heavily jewelled hand on his shoulder.
"Well, you've got ME!" she said--"And all I'm worth! And you 'love' me, don't you?"
She laughed a little.
He looked full at her,--at her worn, hard, artificially got-up face, her fashionable frock, and her cold, expressionless eyes.