When the clergyman ascended the pulpit and gave out the text for the sermon, he singled out Marston by the merest accident in the world, and preached straight at him. The text was from Proverbs, ‘The way of transgressors is hard.’ The preacher was earnest and eloquent. He drew a powerful picture of the life of the evildoer here below. He showed how amid a show of outward happiness the canker-worm was always present to prey upon the heart of the evildoer. He painted in vivid colours the fate of men who transgressed in their desire for wealth and pleasure; and he concluded a powerful sermon by declaring that often, in attaining the prize for which he had steeped his soul in sin, the transgressor did but grasp the instrument of his own undoing, and find his bitterest punishment where he had looked for his greatest happiness. Every word fell upon Edward Marston’s heart with cruel force. His eyes were riveted on the preacher, and it seemed to him as though he had been singled out and denounced—as though in this sacred edifice, on the very threshold of his new life, the voice of offended Heaven had uttered his condemnation. He gave a deep sigh of regret when he found himself once more in the open air. Ruth took his arm, and they walked home together, for Marston was to dine with them. He shook off the feeling of despondency and dread that had come upon him, and managed, with a great effort, to hide his low spirits from the company. But when Ruth sat with him by the window that evening as the shadows deepened, and the holy calmness of a Sabbath eve crept over the quiet streets, and talked to him lovingly and hopefully of the future, his thoughts were far away. He was thinking of the preachers words, and wondering what punishment fate held for him in the days to come. CHAPTER L. FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE. Happy is the bride that the sun shines upon,’ says the old proverb; and the sun shone bravely for Ruth Adrian’s wedding-day. It poured in chastened splendour through the stained-glass windows of the quiet church, and fell upon Ruth Adrian as she knelt at the altar, her head bowed, and her sweet eyes filled with tears of happiness and love. There were no omen-readers there to croak and prophesy, or they would have noticed how strangely this strange stream of sunshine divided bride and bridegroom. It caught the window at an angle which threw it on half the church only, leaving the other half untouched. While Ruth was bathed in its bright warm beams, Marston stood always wrapped in the shadow. As the solemn words of the service fell from the lips of the clergyman, the voice woke in the bridegroom’s heart the memory of the sermon that had seemed like a warning and a threat to him on the day the banns were first published. The solemn charge, ‘I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed,’ caused him to wince as the eyes of the clergyman met his.