“Do you happen to know if there is a door at the foot of these stairs opening into the church?”

“Yes, there is,” said Sherrill.

“Well, there’s no one else in the seat all across to the side aisle. I don’t know why I couldn’t slide in there without being noticed while the prayer is going on.”

“Oh, could you do that?” said Sherrill with great relief in her eyes, and looking down quickly toward the front seat that stretched a vacant length across to the flower-garlanded aisle. “Would you mind? It would be wonderful! But there’s a ribbon across the seat.”

He grinned again socially.

“It would take more than a ribbon to keep me out of a seat I wanted to get into. Are you all right if I leave you for a minute?”

“Of course!” said Sherrill, drawing herself up and trying to look self-sufficient. “Oh, I can never thank you enough!”

“Forget it!” said the young man. “Well, I’d better hurry down and reconnoiter. Sure you’re all right?”

“Sure.” She smiled tremulously.

He was gone, and Sherrill realized that she felt utterly inadequate without him. But suddenly she knew that the procession had arrived at the altar and disposed itself in conventional array. Startled, she looked down upon them. Did nobody know yet? She should have been watching Carter’s face. But of course he would have had his back to her. She could not have told what he was feeling from just his back, could she?

She moved a little farther and could see his face now between the next two palms, and it was white as death, white and frightened! Did she imagine it? No, she felt sure. He had swung half reluctantly around into his place beside Arla, but he lifted his hand to his mouth as if to steady his lips, and she could see that his hand trembled. Didn’t the audience see that? They would. They could not help it. But they would likely lay it to the traditional nervousness all bridegrooms were supposed to feel. Still, Carter! He was always so utterly confident, so at his ease anywhere. How could they credit him with ordinary nervousness?

But the ceremony was proceeding now, her bridegroom, Carter McArthur, getting married to another girl, and there she was above him, unseen, watching.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God and in the presence of this company to join together this man and this woman in the bonds of holy matrimony—”

Chapter 3

A great wrench came to Sherrill’s heart as she looked down and realized that but for a trifling accident, she would even now be standing down there in that white dress and that veil getting married! If she had not tried to go through those two rooms without being seen, if she had not planned to go and show herself to Mary—poor Mary, who was lying on her bed even now thinking she was forgotten—if just such a little trifle as that had not been, she would be down there with Carter now, blissfully happy, being bound to him forever on this earth as long as they both should live. So irrevocable!

For an instant as she thought of it, her heart contracted. Why did she do this awful thing, this thing which would separate her forever from the man she loved so dearly? She could have slipped back into her room unseen; the other girl would have gone away, afraid to do anything else; and she could have gone to the church, and nobody would ever have been the wiser. She would have been Mrs. McArthur. Then what could Arla Prentiss do? Even if she had taken her life, few would have ever heard of it.

But she, Sherrill Cameron, even if she were Sherrill McArthur, would never have been happy. She knew that, even as she looked down into the white face of the staring, stony-eyed bridegroom. For between her and any possibility of joy there would always have come that look on his face when he had kissed the other girl and told her he would always love her best. She never could have laughed down nor forgotten that look. How many other girls had he said that to? she wondered. Was Arla, too, deceived about it? She evidently thought that she, Sherrill, was her only rival. But there might have been others, too. Oh, if one couldn’t trust a man, what was the joy of marriage? If one were not the only one enthroned in a man’s heart, why bind oneself to his footsteps for life? Sherrill had old-fashioned simple ideas and standards of love and marriage.