Peter Koch replaced his snuff-stained handkerchief in the pocket of
his rusty cassock and stood aside. He murmured a few conventional
words of blessing, hard on the heels of stronger exhortations to the
waiting children. And Desiree Sebastian came out into the sunlight-
-Desiree Sebastian no more.

That she was destined for the sunlight was clearly written on her
face and in her gay, kind blue eyes. She was tall and straight and
slim, as are English and Polish and Danish girls, and none other in
all the world. But the colouring of her face and hair was more
pronounced than in the fairness of Anglo-Saxon youth. For her hair
had a golden tinge in it, and her skin was of that startlingly milky
whiteness which is only found in those who live round the frozen
waters. Her eyes, too, were of a clearer blue--like the blue of a
summer sky over the Baltic sea. The rosy colour was in her cheeks,
her eyes were laughing. This was a bride who had no misgivings.

On seeing such a happy face returning from the altar the observer
might have concluded that the bride had assuredly attained her
desire; that she had secured a title; that the pre-nuptial
settlement had been safely signed and sealed.

But Desiree had none of these things. It was nearly a hundred years
ago.

Her husband must have whispered some laughing comment on Koch, or
another appeal to her quick sense of the humorous, for she looked
into his changing face and gave a low, girlish laugh of amusement as
they descended the steps together into the brilliant sunlight.