Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/144

This page needs to be proofread.
132
THE ISLE OF SEVEN MOONS

bride, entered the coach, the most famous of the historic vehicles that had carried the brides and mourners of more than one generation, and rode statelily towards the church.

She felt not the majesty of the occasion, but sank back, a pathetic wisp in the corner, as though, fearing the touch of some hated hand, she were unwilling to let any come near her. Nor did she feel the pathos now. The self-pity, if it had been that she experienced in the upper room, was succeeded by another mood, the ashes of apathy banked over a smouldering rage. The driver had chosen the lower road. From the window she could see the waters. The tide and the clouds seemed to travel with them. She would have been glad if the horses had only fallen, sparing the rest, but carrying her own heavy heart down the hill into the sea. But there was no such salvation, no way out. The ride wound up, as all unhappy journeys, even to the gallows, have a habit of ending, at its appointed destination.

The doors were open, and they could see the lights and the crowd within. Half-way up the walk, she paused.

On the Sabbath, there was something of the harsh about the historic edifice although it never reached the unlovely. From the lofty, unadorned ceiling, hung the severest of gas chandeliers, suggesting nothing so much as crowns fashioned for some race of giant kings, or iron haloes for a hierarchy of tall Puritan saints. High windows of unstained glass, like ascetic eyes, looked arched askance at the worshippers uncomfortably ranged in the pews below. The tablets between the windows, commemorating departed heroes of frigate and ship-of-the-line, had no illumining about their