She turned from him a few seconds later with a faintly tremulous laugh
to give her hand to the best man, but it did not linger in his, and to
his curtly proffered felicitations she made no verbal response whatever.

Ten minutes later, as she left the vestry with her husband, Mrs. Ralston
pressed forward unexpectedly, and openly checked her progress in full
view of the whole assembly.

"My dear," she murmured humbly, "my dear, you'll allow me I know. I
wanted just to tell you how beautiful you look, and how earnestly I pray
for your happiness."

It was a daring move, and it had not been accomplished without courage.
Lady Harriet in the background stiffened with displeasure, nearer to
actual anger than she had ever before permitted herself to be with any
one so contemptible as the surgeon's wife. Even Major Ralston himself,
most phlegmatic of men, looked momentarily disconcerted by his wife's
action.

But Stella--Stella stopped dead with a new light in her eyes, and in a
moment dropped her husband's arm to fling both her own about the gentle,
faded woman who had dared thus openly to range herself on her side.

"Dear Mrs. Ralston," she said, not very steadily, "how more than kind of
you to tell me that!"

The tears were actually in her eyes as she kissed the surgeon's wife.
That spontaneous act of sympathy had pierced straight through her armour
of reserve and found its way to her heart. Her face, as she passed on
down the aisle by her husband's side, was wonderfully softened, and even