That, in itself might have been enough to account for the gloom that darkened her wedding day.  But that was not all.  For, though her father was not visibly present here on earth, she knew that he watched and blessed her from his eternal home.  No! but her prophetic soul was darkened by the shadow of some approaching misfortune.

Margaret, her new maid, brought her a cup of coffee in her chamber.  After she had drank it, she went sadly in her dressing-room, to make her toilet for the altar.

Margaret was her only attendant and dresser.

Salome was still in the deepest mourning for her murdered father.  In leaving it off, for the marriage altar only, she had resolved to replace it only by such a simple dress as might have been worn by any portionless bride in the middle class of society.

She wore a plain white tulle dress, over a lustreless white silk, an Illusion vail, a wreath of orange buds, and white kid gloves and gaiters.  She wore no jewels of any sort.

Her bridesmaids, only two in number, were dressed like herself, except that they wore no vails, and that their wreaths were of white rose buds.

At eleven o’clock in the morning, a handsome but very plain coach drew up before the gate of Elmhurst Terrace.

The bride, attended by her two bridesmaids and Lady Belgrade, entered it, and was driven off quietly to St. George’s, Hanover square.

No invitations had been issued for the wedding, except to the nearest family connections of the bride and bridegroom.

But unfortunately the news of the approaching marriage had crept out, and got into the morning papers, and consequently the street before the church, the churchyard, and the church itself, were crowded with spectators.

Way was made for the small bridal procession, which was met at the entrance by the bridegroom’s party, consisting of himself, his “best man,” and his second groomsman.

There, with reverential tenderness, the young Duke of Hereward greeted his bride.  And the small procession passed up the central aisle, and formed before the altar.

Around them stood the nearest friends of the two families.

Behind them, extending back to the farthest extremity of the church, crowded a miscellaneous mass of spectators.

This must have happened through the oversight of those parties whose duty it was to have had the church doors closed and guarded, so that the marriage of the so recently and cruelly orphaned daughter might be as private and decorous as it was intended to be.

Baron Von Levison, the head of the Berlin branch of the great European banking firm of Levison, had come over to act the part of father to his orphan niece, and stood near the chancel to give her away.

The Bishop of London, assisted by two clergymen, all in their sacred robes of office, stood within the chancel to perform the marriage ceremony.