The central doors were suddenly flung open; the Mendelssohn march rolled out. Mrs. Clephane started up from her stooping posture to signal to Fred Landers that the doors must be shut.... The music stopped ... since the bridegroom was not coming. But the folds of Anne’s train were already slipping through her mother’s fingers, Anne was in motion on Uncle Hendrik’s stalwart arm. The rest of the family had drifted up to their front pews: Fred Landers, a little flushed, stood before Mrs. Clephane, his arm bent to receive her hand. The bride, softly smiling, drew aside to let her mother pass into the church before her. At the far end of the nave, on the chancel-steps, two figures had appeared against a background of lawn sleeves and lilies. Blindly Kate Clephane moved forward, keeping step with Landers’s slow stride. At the chancel-steps he left her, taking his seat with Mrs. Drover. The mother stood alone and waited for her daughter. XXIX. The Drovers had wanted Mrs. Clephane to return to Long Island with them that afternoon; Nollie Tresselton had added her prayer; Anne herself had urged her mother to accept. “How can I drive away thinking of you here all alone?” the girl had said; and Kate had managed to smile back: “You won’t be thinking of me at all!” and had added that she wanted to rest, and have time to gather up her things before sailing. It had been settled, in the last days before the wedding, that she was to go abroad for the winter: to Italy, perhaps, or the south of France. The young couple, after a brief dash to Florida, were off for India, by Marseilles and Suez; it seemed only reasonable that Mrs. Clephane should not care to remain in New York. And Anne knew--though no one else did--that when her mother went abroad she would not go alone. Nothing was to be said ... not a word to any one; though by this time--an hour after bride and groom had driven away to the Palm Beach express--Chris Fenno was no doubt in the secret. Anne had left without anxiety; she understood her mother’s wish to keep her plans to herself, and respected it. And in a few days now the family would be reassembling at St. Stephen’s for another, even quieter wedding. * * * * * Aline came downstairs to the long drawing-room, where Mrs. Clephane was sitting alone in a litter of fallen rose-petals, grains of rice and ends of wedding-cake ribbon. Beyond, in the dining-room, the servants were moving away the small tables, and carrying off the silver in green-lined baskets. The house-keeper had come in to give the butler the address of the hospital to which Mrs. Fenno wished the flowers to be sent, and a footman was already removing the baskets and bouquets from the drawing-room. “Madame will be much more comfortable upstairs than in all this untidiness; and Mr. Landers has telephoned to ask if he may see Madame in about half an hour.”