Then the eventful day came—­Lord Arleigh and Madaline were to be married at an early hour.

“Not,” said Lord Arleigh, proudly, “that there is any need for concealment—­why should there be?—­but you see, Lady Peters if it were known that it was my wedding-day, I have so many friends, so many relatives, that privacy would be impossible for us; therefore the world has not been enlightened as to when I intended to claim my darling for my own.”

“It is a strange marriage for an Arleigh,” observed Lady Peters—­“the first of its kind, I am sure.  But I think you are right—­your plan is wise.”

All the outward show made at the wedding consisted in the rapid driving of a carriage from the hotel to the church—­a carriage containing two ladies—­one young, fair, charming as a spring morning, the other older, graver, and more sedate.

The young girl was fair and sweet, her golden hair shining through the marriage vail, her blue eyes wet with unshed tears, her face flushed with daintiest rose-leaf bloom.

It was a pleasant spectacle to see the dark, handsome face of her lover as he greeted her, the love that shone in his eyes, the pride of his manner, as though he would place her before the whole world, and defy it to produce one so graceful or so fair.  Lady Peters’ face softened and her heart beat as she walked up to the altar with them.  This was true love.

So the grand old words of the marriage-service were pronounced—­they were promised to each other for better for worse, for weal for woe—­never to part until death parted them—­to be each the other’s world.

It was the very morning for a bride.  Heaven and earth smiled their brightest, the sunshine was golden, the autumn flowers bloomed fair, the autumn foliage had assumed its rich hues of crimson and of burnished gold; there was a bright light over the sea and the hill-tops.

Only one little contretemps happened at the wedding.  Madaline smiled at it.  Lord Arleigh was too happy even to notice it, but Lady Peters grew pale at the occurrence; for, according to her old-fashioned ideas, it augured ill.

Just as Lord Arleigh was putting the ring on the finger of his fair young bride, it slipped and fell to the ground.  The church was an old-fashioned one, and there were graves and vaults all down the aisle.  Away rolled the little golden ring, and when Lord Arleigh stooped down he could not see it.  He was for some minutes searching for it, and then he found it—­it had rolled into the hollow of a large letter on one of the level grave-stones.

Involuntarily he kissed it as he lifted it from the ground; it was too cruel for anything belonging to that fair young bride to have been brought into contact with death.  Lady Peters noted the little incident with a shudder, Madaline merely smiled.  Then the ceremony was over—­Lord Arleigh and Madaline were man and wife.  It seemed to him that the whole world around him was transformed.