At that most searching admonition, "I require and charge you both, as ye will answer in the dreadful day of judgment ... if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together ... ye do now confess it," they searched their souls, but if they found impediment it stood unconfessed. Once, Margaret felt her lover's hand close suddenly on hers and then relax. She loved him for his vehemence, and gave an answering clasp. At that moment those near the door looked into each other's faces with startled, questioning gaze and bent their heads to listen. No sound was heard above the rector's solemn monotone and the response. "Victor, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?" The straining ears relaxed and gave heed to the bridegroom's vow. "Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?" And Victor De Jarnette answered resonantly, "I will." Kneeling, they asked God's benediction on their wedded lives; then down the aisle in radiant happiness they led the train,--one flesh, if there be aught in vows--for evermore. * * * * * "Did you hear anything during that ceremony?" asked John Jarvis, the lawyer, of his wife as they drove away. She looked up eagerly. "Yes. Did you?" "I thought I did. What was it, do you think?" "It sounded to me like a knock--" "Yes,--" "--and then a cry, faint, but like a woman's voice." They spoke in guarded tones, but the old carriage driver, who had been in the family for twenty years and was a privileged character, heard and touched his hat. "Dat was a crazy woman, miss, de p'liceman say, tryin' to git in widout no ticket. Dey run 'er in. Yaas, miss." A knot of men who had likewise heard the knock discussed it as they walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue. "He's been wild," said one, raising his brow, and his companion answered with easy tolerance, "Oh, yes, of course. But he has sowed his wild oats, and now he is ready to settle down." A lady, passing, caught the words and their drift. "Did you ever notice," she said thoughtfully to her husband, who walked beside her, "that people always say, 'Oh well, he has sowed his wild oats,' as if that finished it? But in the country, where I was born, we sow our oats and know that we will reap. I imagine 'wild oats' are not very different from other kinds." CHAPTER II THE ELDER BROTHER "Some of him lived but the most of him died-- (Even as you and I!)" "For one thing he is too young," said Richard De Jarnette. "At twenty-one a man is still a boy, unless he has had more to develop him than Victor has ever had. And besides--" And there he stopped.