He thought that she did not comprehend what this good fortune would mean to them. And he was quite mystified when she sent him away and refused to see him again before the ceremony of the following day. He could not realize that in some matters--a few small matters--he had bruised the woman's ideal of him; he could not understand why these last hours, before she took him to her arms forever, she wished to spend alone with her own soul in a kind of prayer.... There were only a few people present at the marriage in the little Maple Street house the next day. Many of their more fashionable friends still lingered away from the city although it was late in October. Mrs. Phillips had made a point of coming to the wedding, even putting off a projected trip to New York, and after much urging she had been made to bring Venetia, who was strangely bent on going to this wedding. Pemberton, an old friend of the Spellmans, who had recently been asked to join the Powers Jackson trustees, was there, and also little Cook, who was the backbone of the new office. Everett Wheeler was the best man. He and Hollister had put off their yearly fishing trip to do honor to Jackson Hart, who had won their approval, because the young man had swallowed his disappointment about the will and was going to marry a poor girl. Hollister and Pemberton had brought Judge Phillips with them, because he was in town and liked weddings and ought to send the pair a goodly gift. Of the presence of all these and some others the young architect was agreeably conscious that October day. Only that morning, on the way to the house, Everett had referred to the great school building, a monumental affair, which the trustees would have to build some day. He said nothing that might commit the trustees in any way. Nevertheless, it was in the aroma of this new prospect, and of all the other good fortune which had come to him since he had taken up his burden of poverty, that Jackson Hart was married. But Helen walked up to him to be married, in a dream, unconscious of the whole world, with a mystery of love in her heart. When the ceremony was over, she looked up into her husband's resolute face, which was slightly flushed with excitement. Venetia, standing by her uncle's side a few steps away, could see tears in the bride's eyes, and the girl wondered in her heart what it meant. Did the woman know now that the man who stood there face to face with her, her husband, was yet a stranger to her soul? She raised her lips swiftly to him, as if to complete the sacrament, and there before all he bowed his head to kiss her. PART II THE STRUGGLE CHAPTER X