The wedding was unreal; it seemed that all those people were just making the movements of life; there were moments when she heard them from a long way off, saw them and was uncertain whether they were there. And yet she could go on and appear about the same; if she seemed a little queer she was sure it was attributed to natural feeling about her dearest friend's wedding--to emotion, excitement. There were moments when things suddenly became real: a moment alone with Edith in her room, just before they went to the church; a moment when Mrs. Lawrence broke down. Walking down the aisle, the words of the service--that was in a vague, blurred world; so was Edith's strained face as she turned away, and her own walking down the aisle with Deane, turning to him and smiling and saying something and feeling as if her lips were frozen. Yet for three hours she laughed and talked with people. Mrs. Williams was at the reception; several times they were in the same group. Oh, it was all unreal--terrible--just a thing to drive through. There was a moment at the last when Edith clung to her, and when it seemed that she could not do the terrible thing she was going to do, that she was _not_ going to do it--that the whole thing was some hideous nightmare. She wanted to stay with Edith. She wanted to be like Edith. She felt like a little girl then, just a frightened little girl who did not want to go away by herself, away from everything she knew, from people who loved her. She did not want to do that awful thing! She tried to pretend for a moment she was not going to do it--just as sometimes she used to hide her face when afraid. At last it was all over; she had gone to the train and seen Edith and Will off for the East. Edith's face was pressed against the window of the Pullman as the train pulled out. It was Ruth she was looking for; it was to Ruth her eyes clung until the train drew her from sight. Ruth stood there looking after the train; the rest of their little group of intimate friends had turned away--laughing, chattering, getting back in the carriages. Deane finally touched Ruth's arm, for she was standing in that same place looking after the train which had now passed from sight. When he saw the woe of her wet face he said gruffly: "Hadn't we better walk home?" He looked down at her delicate slippers, but better walk in them than join the others looking like that. He supposed walking would not be good for that frail dress; and then it came to him, and stabbed him, that it didn't much matter. Probably Ruth would not wear that dress again.