Together. Robert Herrick

now. They two had not been one before: the words did not make them so now. It was their desire. But the old divided selves, the old impulses, they were to die, here, forever.

      She heard herself repeating the words after the minister. Her strong young voice in the stillness of the chapel sounded strangely not her own voice, but the voice of some unknown woman within her, who was taking the oath for her in this barbaric ceremony whereby man and woman are bound together. "And hereby I plight thee my troth,"—the voice sank to a whisper as of prayer. Her eyes came back to the man's face, searching for his eyes.

      There were little beads of perspiration on his broad brow, and the shaven lips were closely pressed together, moulding the face into lines of will—the look of mastery. What was he, this man, now her husband for always, his hand about hers in sign of perpetual possession and protection? What beneath all was he who had taken with her, thus publicly, the mighty oath of fidelity, "until death us do part"? Each had said it; each believed it; each desired it wholly. Perversely, here in the moment of her deepest feeling, intruded the consciousness of broken contracts, the waste of shattered purposes. Ah, but theirs was different! This absolute oath of fidelity one to the other, each with his own will and his own desire—this irredeemable contract of union between man and woman—it was not always a binding sacrament. Often twisted and broken, men and women promising in the belief of the best within them what was beyond their power to perform. There were those in that very chapel who had said these words and broken them, furtively or legally … With them, of course, it would be different, would be the best; for she conceived their love to be of another kind—the enduring kind. Nevertheless, just here, while the priest of society pronounced the final words of union, something spoke within the woman's soul that it was a strange oath to be taking, a strange manner of making two living beings one!

      "And I pronounce you man and wife," the words ran. Then the minister hastened on into his little homily upon the marriage state. But the woman's thought rested at those fateful words—"man and wife,"—the knot of the contract. There should fall a new light in her heart that would make her know they were really one, having now been joined as the book said "in holy wedlock." From this sacramental union of persons there should issue to both a new spirit …

      Her husband was standing firm and erect, listening with all the concentration of his mind to what the minister was saying—not tumultuously distracted—as though he comprehended the exact gravity of this contract into which he was entering, as he might that of any other he could make, sure of his power to fulfil all, confident before Fate. She trembled strangely. Did she know him, this other self? In the swift apprehension of life's depths which came through her heightened mood she perceived that ultimate division lying between all human beings, that impregnable fortress of the individual soul. … It was all over. He looked tenderly at her. Her lips trembled with a serious smile—yes, they would understand now!

      The people behind them moved more audibly. The thing was done; the priest's words of exhortation were largely superfluous. All else that concerned married life these two would have to find out for themselves. The thing was done, as ordained by the church, according to the rules of society. Now it was for Man and Wife to make of it what they would or—could.

      The minister closed his book in dismissal. The groom offered his arm to the bride. Facing the chapelful she came out of that dim world of wonder whither she had strayed. Her veil thrown back, head proudly erect, eyes mistily ranging above the onlookers, she descended the altar steps, gazing down the straight aisle over the black figures, to the sunny village green, beyond into the vista of life! … Triumphant organ notes beat through the chapel, as they passed between the rows of smiling faces—familiar faces only vaguely perceived, yet each with its own expression, its own reaction from this ceremony. She swept on deliberately, with the grace of her long stride, her head raised, a little smile on her open lips, her hand just touching his—going forward with him into life.

      Only two faces stood out from the others at this moment—the dark, mischievous face of Nancy Lawton, smiling sceptically. Her dark, little eyes seemed to say, 'Oh, you don't know yet!' And the other was the large, placid face of a blond woman, older than the bride, standing beside a stolid man at the end of a pew. The serene, soft eyes of this woman were dim with tears, and a tender smile still lingered on her lips. She at least, Alice Johnston, the bride's cousin, could smile through the tears—a smile that told of the sweetness in life. … .

      At the door the frock-coated young ushers formed into double line through which the couple passed. The village green outside was flooded with sunshine, checkered by drooping elm branches. Bells began to ring from the library across the green and from the schoolhouse farther down. It was over—the fine old barbaric ceremony, the passing of the irredeemable contract between man and woman, the public proclamation of eternal union. Henceforth they were man and wife before the law, before their kind—one and one, and yet not two.

      Thus together they passed out of the church.

CHAPTER II

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      The company gathered within the chapel for the wedding now moved and talked with evident relief, each one expressing his feeling of the solemn service.

      "Very well done, very lovely!" the Senator was murmuring to the bride's mother, just as he might give an opinion of a good dinner or some neat business transaction or of a smartly dressed woman. It was a function of life successfully performed—and he nodded gayly to a pretty woman three rows away. He was handsome and gray-haired, long a widower, and evidently considered weddings to be an attractive, ornamental feature of social life. Mrs. Price, the bride's mother, intent upon escaping with the Colonel by the side door and rejoining the bridal party at the house before the guests arrived on foot, scarcely heeded the amiable Senator's remarks. This affair of her daughter's marriage was, like most events, a matter of engrossing details. The Colonel, in his usual gregarious manner, had strayed among the guests, forgetful of his duties, listening with bent head to congratulatory remarks. She had to send her younger son, Vickers, after him where he lingered with Farrington Beals, the President of the great Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, in which his new son-in-law held a position. When the Colonel finally dragged himself away from the pleasant things that his old friend Beals had to say about young Lane, he looked at his impatient wife with his tender smile, as if he would like to pat her cheek and say, "Well, we've started them right, haven't we?"

      The guests flowed conversationally towards the door and the sunny green, while the organ played deafeningly. But play as exultantly as it might, it could not drown the babble of human voices. Every one wanted to utter those excitable commonplaces that seem somehow to cover at such times deep meanings.

      "What a perfect wedding!"

      "How pretty it all was!"

      "Not a hitch."

      "She looked the part."

      "Good fellow—nice girl—ought to be happy … Well, old man, when is your turn coming? … Could hear every word they said … looked as though they meant it, too! … "

      In an eddy of the centre aisle a tall, blond young woman with handsome, square shoulders and dark eyes stood looking about her calmly, as if she were estimating the gathering, setting each one down at the proper social valuation, deciding, perhaps, in sum that they were a very "mixed lot," old friends and new, poor and rich. A thin girl, also blond, with deep blue eyes, and a fine bony contour of the face, was swept by the stream near the solitary observer and held out a hand:—

      "Cornelia!"

      "Margaret!"

      "Isn't it ideal!" Margaret Lawton exclaimed, her nervous face still stirred by all that she had felt during the service—"the day, the country, and this dear little chapel!"

      "Very sweet," the large woman replied in a purring voice, properly modulated for the sentiment expressed. "Isabelle made an impressive bride." And these two school friends moved on towards the door. Cornelia Pallanton, still surveying the scene, nodded and said to her companion, "There's