"Well, what do _you_ think?" said Caesar. "Shall the man slip off and get married to himself, think you?"

There was laughter among the people standing round, and she laughed also and stepped into the coach. Her mother followed her, crinkling in noisy old silk, and Nancy Joe came next, smelling of lavender and hair-oil.

Then her father got in, and then Pete, with his great warm presence.

A salute of six guns was fired straight up by the coach-windows. The horses pranced, Nancy screamed, and Grannie started, but Kate gave no sign. People were closing round the coach-door and shouting altogether as at a fair. "Good luck to you, boy. Good luck! Good luck!" Pete was answering in a rolling voice that seemed to be lifting the low roof off, and at the same time flinging money out in handfuls as the horses moved away.

They were going slowly down the road. From somewhere in front came the sound of a clarionet. It was playing "the Black and the Grey."

Immediately behind there was the tramp of people walking with an even step, and on either side the rustle of an irregular crowd. The morning was warm and beautiful. Here and there the last of the golden cus.h.a.g glistened on the hedges with the first of the autumn gorse. They pa.s.sed two or three houses that had been made roofless by the recent storm, and once or twice they came on a fallen tree-trunk with its thin leaves yellowing on the fading gra.s.s.

Kate was floating vaguely through these sights and sounds. It was all like a dream to her--a waking dream in shadow-land. She knew where she was and where she was going. Some glimmering of hope was left yet.

She was half expecting a miracle of some sort. Philip would be at the church. Something supernatural would occur.

They drew up sharply, the gla.s.s of the windows rattled, and the talk that had been going on in the carriage ceased. "Here we are," cried Caesar; there were voices outside, and then the others inside stepped down. She saw a hand held out to her and knew whose it was before her eyes had risen to the face. Philip was there. He was helping her to alight.

"Am I to get down too?" she asked in a helpless way.

Caesar said something that made the people laugh again, and then she smiled like faded sunshine and took the hand of Philip. She held it a moment as if expecting him to say something, but he only raised his hat.

His face was white as marble. He will speak yet, she thought.

Over the gateway to the churchyard there was an arch of flowers and evergreens, with an inscription in coloured letters: "G.o.d bless the happy pair." The sloping path going down as to a dell was strewn with gilvers and slips of fuchsia.

At the bottom stood the old church mantled in ivy, like a rock of the sea covered by green moss.

Leaning on her father's arm she walked in at the porch. The church was full of people. As they pa.s.sed under the gallery there was a twittering as of birds. The Sunday-school girls were up there, looking down and talking eagerly. Then the coughing and hemming ceased; there was a sort of deep inspiration; the church seemed to hold its breath for a moment.

After that there were broken exclamations, and the coughing and hemming began again. "How pale!"--"Not fit, poor thing." Everybody was pitying her starved features.

"Stand here," said somebody in a soft voice.

"Must I?" she said quite loudly.

All at once she was aware that she was alone before the communion rail, with the parson--old ruddy-faced Parson Quiggin--in his white surplice facing her. Some one came and stood beside her. It was Pete. She did not look at him, but she felt his warm presence again, and was relieved. It was like shelter from the eyes around. After a moment she turned about Philip was one step behind Pete. His head was bent.

Then the service began. The voice of the parson muttered words in a low voice, but she did not listen. She found herself trying to spell out the Manx text printed over the chancel arch: "Bannet T'eshyn Ta Cheet ayns Ennyn y Chearn" ("Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord").

Suddenly the words the parson was speaking leapt into meaning and made her quiver.

".... is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men, and therefore not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly----"

She seemed to know that Philip's eyes were on her. They were on the back of her head, and the veil over her face began to shake.

The voice of the parson was going on again--

"Therefore if any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace."

She turned half around. Her eyes fell on Philip. His face was colourless, almost fierce; his forehead was deathly white. She was sure that something was about to happen.

Now was the moment for the miracle. It seemed to her as if the whole congregation were beginning to divine what tie there was between him and her. She did not care, for he would soon declare it. He was going to do so now; he had raised his head, he was about to speak.

No, there was no miracle. Philip's eyes fell before her eyes, and his head went down. He was only digging at the red baize with one of his feet. She felt tired, so very tired, and oh! so cold. The parson had gone on with his reading. When she caught up with him he was saying--

"--as ye shall, answer at the great day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it."

The parson paused. He had always paused at that point. The pause had no meaning for him, but for Kate how much! Impediment! There was indeed an impediment. Confess? How could she ever confess? The warning terrified her. It seemed to have been made for her alone. She had heard it before, and thought nothing of it. Now it seemed to scorch her very soul. She began to tremble violently.

There was an indistinct murmur which she did not catch. The parson seemed to be speaking to Pete--

"--love her, comfort her, honour and keep her... so long as ye both shall live."

And then came Pete's voice, full and strong from his great chest, but far off, and going by her ear like a voice in a sh.e.l.l--"I will."

After that the parson's words seemed to be falling on her face.

"Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after G.o.d's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"

Kate was far away. She was spelling out the Manx text, "Bannet T'eshyn Ta Cheet," but the letters were dancing in and out of each other, and yellow lights were darting from her eyes. Suddenly she was aware that the parson's voice had stopped. There was blank silence, then an uneasy rustle, and then somebody was saying something in a soft tone.

"Eh?" she said aloud.

The parson's voice came now in a whisper at her breast--"Say, 'I will.'"

"Ah I," she murmured.

"I-will! That's all, my dear. Say it with me, 'I--will.'"

She framed her lips to speak, but the words were half uttered by the parson. The next thing she knew was that a stray hand was holding her hand. She felt more safe now that her poor cold fingers lay in that big warm palm.

It was Pete, and he was speaking again. She did not so much hear him as feel his voice tingling through her veins.

"I, Peter Quilliam, take thee, Katherine Cregeen----'"

But it was all a vague murmur, fraying off into nothing, ending like a wave with a long upward plash of low sound.

The parson was speaking to her again, softly, gently, caressingly, almost as if she were a frightened child. "Don't be afraid, my dear! try to speak after me. Take your time."

Then, aloud, "'I, Katherine Cregeen.'"

Her throat gurgled; she faltered, but she spoke at length in the toneless voice of one who speaks in sleep.

"'I, Katherine Cregeen---'"

"'Take thee, Peter Quilliam----'"

The toneless voice broke---- "take thee, Peter Quilliam------'"

And then all came in a rush, with some of the words distinctly repeated, and some of them droned and dropped--

"--'to my wedded husband, to have and to hold-----'"

"--'have and to hold-----'"