There was nothing now to be done in the way of prevention, and a dull, sullen anger took the place of entreaty in Maria's mind. "If they will set my back to the wall, they shall see I can fight," she thought, as she wretchedly took her way to her room. The beauteous gown was shining on her bed, and she passionately tossed it aside and lay down and fell asleep. When she awoke it was morning, a gusty, rainy morning with glints of sunshine between the showers. She was greatly depressed, and not a little frightened. What she had to do she determined to do, but oh! what would come after it? Then she was shocked to find that the scene she was resolved to enact, though gone over so often in her mind, slipped away from her consciousness whenever she tried to recall or arrange it. For a few minutes she was in a mood to be driven against her will, and she fully realized this condition. "I must be strong and of good courage," she whispered. "I must cease thinking and planning. I must leave this thing to be done till the moment comes to do it. I am only wasting my strength." Fortunately, she was continually interrupted. Coffee was sent to her room. Then the hairdresser arrived, and the women to robe her for the ceremony. She was quite passive in their hands, and when her father appeared, ready to answer his "Come, Maria." The parlors were crowded with the Spencers and their friends, and congratulations sounded fitfully in her ears as carriage after carriage rolled away to St. Margaret's Church. Mr. Semple and Maria were in the last coach, and his wife and the bridegroom in the one immediately before them. So that when they arrived at the church, the company were already grouped around the communion railing. Maria felt like a soul in a bad dream; she was just aware when she left the carriage that it was raining heavily, and that her father took her arm and sharply bid her to "lift her wedding dress from the plashy pavement." She made a motion with her hand, but failed to grasp it, and then she was walking up the gloomy aisle, she was at the rail, the clergyman was standing before her, the bridegroom at her side, the company all about her. There was prayer, and she felt the pressure of her father's hand force her to her knees; and then there was a constant murmur of voices, and a spell like that which held her during her last interview with Lord Medway was upon her. But suddenly she remembered this fateful apathy, and the memory was like movement in a nightmare. The instant she recognized it the influence was broken and she was almost painfully conscious of Richard Spencer's affirmative: "I will."