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The vicar came forward at length and proposed an adjournment to the vestry. He was no ordinary cleric, but a man with a fine, forceful, and magnetic personality, endowed, moreover, with consummate tact and good feeling; in brief, the Reverend Joseph Iverson was—and is—a Christian and gentleman in every sense of those often misused words.

“We can wait more comfortably in here,” he announced cheerily, as he brought forward a rush-bottomed chair for the bride, and in fatherly fashion, with a compelling hand on her shoulder, placed her in it.

“There, sit you down, and don’t be distressed, my dear child. I’m quite sure there’s no cause for alarm. Anyone—even a bridegroom—may be excused for losing his way in such a fog as this that has descended upon us. That’s the explanation of his absence, depend upon it. And he will arrive in another minute or two—in a considerable fluster, I’ll be bound, poor lad!”

His genial laugh reassured the others, who stood round, awkward, anxious, and embarrassed, as people naturally are at such a moment; but Grace looked up at him with a glance so tragic that it startled and distressed him.