of her husband, and took her seat on the platform by the side of the Cardinal on the left hand of the great Cross, against which Manuel leaned lightly like a child who is not conscious of observation, but who simply takes the position which seems to him most natural.  And when the subdued murmuring of the crowd had died into comparative silence, Aubrey, advancing a little to the front of the Cross, spoke in clear ringing tones, which carried music to the ears and conviction to the heart.

“My friends!  I have asked you all here in your thousands, to witness the most sacred act of my human life—­my marriage!  By the law of this realm,—­by the law of America, the country of my birth,—­that marriage is already completed and justified,—­but no ‘religious’ ceremony has yet been performed between myself and her whom I am proud and grateful to call wife.  To my mind however, a ‘religious’ ceremony is necessary, and I have chosen to hold it here,—­with you who have listened to me in this place many and many a time,—­with you as witnesses to the oath of fidelity and love I am about to take in the presence of God!  There is no clergyman present—­no one to my knowledge of any Church denomination except a Cardinal of the Church of Rome who is my guest and friend, but who takes no part in the proceedings.  The Cross alone stands before you as the symbol of the Christian faith,—­and what I swear by that symbol means for me a vow that shall not be broken either in this world, or in the world to come!  I need scarcely tell you that this is not the usual meaning of marriage in our England of to-day.  There is much blasphemy in the world, but one of the greatest blasphemies of the age is the degradation of the sacrament of matrimony,—­the bland tolerance with which an ordained priest of Christ presumes to invoke the blessing of God upon a marriage between persons whom he knows are utterly unsuited to each other in every way, who are not drawn together by love, but only by worldly considerations of position and fortune.  I have seen these marriages consummated.  I have seen the horrible and often tragic results of such unholy union.  I have known of cases where a man, recognized as a social blackguard of the worst type, whose ways of life are too odious to be named, has been accepted as a fitting mate for a young innocent girl just out of school, because he is a Lord or a Duke or an Earl.  Anything for money!  Anything for the right to stand up and crow over your neighbours!  When an inexperienced girl or woman is united for life to a loathsome blackguard, an open sensualist, a creature far lower than the beasts, yet possessed of millions, she is ‘congratulated’ as being specially to be envied, when as a matter of strict honesty, it would be better if she were in her grave.  The prayers and invocations pronounced at such marriages are not ’religious,’—­they are mere profanity!  The priest who says ’Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,’