Ah, that would be he and Schnapsie, then. Up that long avenue, beneath all these curious Christian eyes, he, Daniel Peyser, would have to walk. He tried to rehearse it mentally now, so that he might not shame her; he paced pompously and stiffly, with beautiful Schnapsie on his arm, a glory of white veil. He saw himself slowly reaching the platform, under the chilling cross; then everything swam before him, and he sank shuddering into his seat. His little Schnapsie! She was being sucked up into all this hateful heathendom, to the seductive music of satanic orchestras. He sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that the organ had ceased, and that some preacher's recitative had begun instead. When he looked up again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague, as through a mist. He passed his hand over his clouded brow. Of a sudden a sentence of the recitative pierced sharply to his brain:-- "Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace." O God of Israel! Then it was the last chance! He sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony: "No, no, she must not marry him! She must not!" All heads turned toward the shabby old man. An electric shiver ran through the church. The bride paled; a bridesmaid shrieked; the minister, taken aback, stood silent. A white-gloved usher hurried up. "Do you forbid the banns?" called the minister. The old man's mind awoke, and groped mistily. "Come, what have you to say?" snapped the usher. "I--I--nothing," he murmured in awed confusion. "He is drunk," said the usher. "Out with you, my man." He hustled Daniel toward the side door, and let it swing behind him. But Daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spectators outside. He hung miserably about the vestibule till the Wedding March swelled in ironic triumph, and the human outpour swept him into the street. XI His abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled Schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not elicit that anything had happened. In the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage items, paused on a big-headed paragraph. "I FORBID THE BANNS!" STRANGE SCENE AT A CHALK FARM CHURCH. When she had finished the paragraph and read another, the first began to come back to her, shadowed with a strange suspicion. Why, this was the very church--? A Jewish-looking old man--! Great heavens! Then all this had been mere pose, self-sacrifice. And his wits were straying under the too heavy burden! Only blind craving for her own happiness could have made her believe that the mental habits of seventy years could be broken off. "Well, father," she said brightly, "you will be losing me very soon now." His lips quivered into a pathetic smile. "I am very glad." He paused, struggling with himself. "If you are sure you will be happy!" "But haven't we talked that over enough, father?"