And this other, this strange being who dominated her movements, stood passively and willingly by, while her despairing and truer self saw the shame and truth.  She was a lie.  The guests, friends, attendants, bridesmaids, the minister, the father, mother, groom—­all were lies.  They expressed nothing of their true feelings.

The unwelcomed curious, who had crowded into the back of the church, were the sincerest, for in their eyes, covetousness was openly unveiled.  The guests and friends wore the conventional shallow smiles of guests and friends.  They whispered to one another—­a beautiful wedding—­a gorgeous gown—­a perfect bride—­a handsome groom; and exclaimed in their hearts:  How sad the father!  How lofty, proud, exultant the mother!  How like her to move heaven and earth to make this marriage!  The attendants posed awkwardly, a personification of the uselessness of their situation, and they pitied the bride while they envied him for whose friendship they stood.  The bridesmaids graced their position and gloried in it, and serenely smiled, and thought that to be launched in life in such dazzling manner might be compensation for the loss of much.  He of the flowing robe, of the saintly expression, of the trained earnestness, the minister who had power to unite these lives, saw nothing behind that white veil, saw only his fashionable audience, while his resonant voice rolled down the aisles of the church:  “Who gives this woman to be wedded to this man?” The father answered and straightway the years rolled back to his youth, to hope, to himself as he stood at the altar with love and trust, and then again to the present, to the failure of health and love and life, to the unalterable destiny accorded him, to the one shame of an honest if unsuccessful life—­the countenancing of this marriage.  The worldly mother had, for once, a full and swelling heart.  For her this was the crowning moment.  In one sense this fashionable crowd had been pitted against her and she had won.  What to her had been the pleading of a daughter, the importunity of a father, the reasoning of a few old-fashioned friends?  The groom, who represented so much and so little in this ceremony, had entered the church with head held high, had faced his bride with gratified smile and the altar with serene unconsciousness.

Margaret Maynard saw all this; saw even the bride, with her splendidly regular loveliness; and then, out of heaven, it seemed there thundered an awful command, rolling the dream away, striking terror to her heart.

“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!”

One long, silent, terrible moment!  Would not an angel appear, with flaming sword, to smite her dead?  But the sing-song voice went on, like flowing silk.

The last guest at Mrs. Maynard’s reception had gone, reluctantly, out into the snow, and the hostess sat in her drawing-room, amid the ruins of flowers and palms.  She was alone with her triumph.  Mr. Maynard and Mr. Swann were smoking in the library.  Owing to the storm and delicate health of the bride the wedding journey had been postponed.