It was Richard who saw it first, and Richard's hand which brushed away the skeleton of Frank's letter from the skirts of his bride, leaving a soiled, yellowish stain, which Susie Granger loudly deplored, while Ethelyn only drew her drapery around her, saying coldly, that "it did not matter in the least.
She would as soon have it there as not." It was meet, she thought, that the purity of her bridal garments should be tarnished; for was not her heart all stained, and black, and crisp with cruel deception?
That little incident, however, affected her strangely, bringing back so vividly the scene on the ledge of rocks beneath the New England laurels, where Frank had sat beside her and poured words of boyish passion into her ear.

There was for a moment a pitiful look of anguish in her eyes as they went out into the summer night toward the huckleberry hills, where lay that ledge of massy rock, and then come back to the realities about her.

Frank saw the look of pain, and it awoke in his own breast an answering throb as he wondered if, after all, Ethie would not have preferred that he were standing by her instead of the grave Judge, fitting on his gloves with an awkwardness which said that such articles were comparative strangers to his large, red hands.
It was time now to go down.

The guests had all arrived, the clergyman was waiting, and Captain Markham had grown very red in the face with his impatience, which his wife tried in vain to quiet.

If at this last moment there arose in Ethelyn's bosom any wild impulse to break away from the dreadful scene, and rush out into the darkness which lay so softly upon the hills, she put it aside, with the thought, "too late now--forever too late"; and taking the arm which Richard offered her, she went mechanically down the staircase into the large parlor where the wedding guests were assembled.