Stella had kept him waiting in the hall, watch in hand; had then sauntered leisurely down the broad oak staircase in her wedding-gown, attended at a distance by the two frightened satellites, Ellen and Dakin, and by old Margaret, whose features wore a scared and troubled look. Miss Cranstoun had offered no apologies to her father for keeping him waiting, but had coolly crossed to where he was standing, and looked at him with shining eyes, in which some strange laughter seemed hidden, from behind her veil. “What are you waiting for?” he had asked in his harshest tones. “Your arm, of course.” There was more than defiance, there was an insolence in her tone and manner utterly new to him. Nevertheless, there was no time to be lost in reprimands or punishments now. He dreaded beyond all things lest she might make a scene in church before Lady Northborough and the Duke. Her fear of him and constraint in his presence seemed to have vanished. Some subtle change had come over her state of mind toward him. She actually shook his arm impatiently as he stood a moment, pale with anger, regarding her. “Get on to the church,” she muttered, roughly. “Don’t waste time.” The grasp of her fingers tightened on his arm. This time it was actually she who was hurting him, as she clutched his skin through his coat. He glanced at her quickly, and then at the faces of the women behind her. The idea which possessed their brains entered his also, and he asked himself whether grief and harsh treatment could have temporarily deprived his daughter of her reason. As Sir Philip led the bride along the terrace toward the church door, a murmur of admiration ran through the crowd. Her face had lost its pallor; through the tulle veil a bright color showed in her cheeks, and contrasted with the intense purple-blue of her restless, gleaming eyes. Two persons her gaze sought in the crowd about the doors. First they lighted upon old Sarah Carewe, and that look in her eyes which was almost a smile deepened and broadened. Next, her gaze sought out Stephen Lee, and seemed to read in one piercing glance, as she passed close to him, the hopeless passion for her which consumed him. As though by accident, she dropped her lace handkerchief at the church door. One or two persons among the crowd pressed forward to pick it up, and among them Stephen, who, as he transferred it to the bride’s hand, felt, to his utter astonishment, that she had slipped a piece of paper into his fingers.