I suppose, now, you didn't have time for
anything to eat before you came?"
This was the actual truth. Ruth owned it with a feeling of guilt. And
suddenly she found that she could not speak then. There was something
that made it impossible. Perhaps it was the loud clash of the bells
overhead.
"I am very sorry," she said again.
Tots smiled.
"You must manage better at our own weddin'," he said. "There's nothin'
like fortifyin' yourself with a good substantial meal for an ordeal of
this sort. You're feelin' better, eh? Take my arm."
She obeyed him, still quivering with her fruitless effort to tell him of
the miserable deception she had unintentionally practised upon him. She
had a feeling that, if she made him angry, the world itself would stop.
Surely no one had ever found Tots formidable before.
At the touch of his hand upon hers, she started.
"What's wrong with it?" queried Tots softly. "Doesn't it fit?"
She glanced up in confusion. She was trembling so that she could
scarcely stand. He slipped his arm about her reassuringly, comfortably.
"Never mind. We must look at it together. I'll take it back if it isn't
right. We'll go through the church, shall we? It's the shortest way."
He led her, unresisting, back into the building, and the clamour of the
bells merged into the swelling chords of the organ. As they walked side
by side down the empty aisle the strains of Mendelssohn's Wedding March
transformed their progress into a triumphant procession, and Tots looked
down into the girl's face with a smile.
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