When the bishop came to that part of the rites in which he utters the awful adjuration—­“I require and charge you both, as ye shall answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.  For be ye well assured, that if any persons are joined together, otherwise than God’s word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful,”—­Bee, who was standing with her mother and father near the bridal circle, looked up at the bride.

Oh, could Claudia, loving another, loathing the bridegroom, kneel in that sacred church, before that holy altar, in the presence of God’s minister, in the presence of God himself, hear that solemn adjuration, and persevere in her awful sin?

Yes, Claudia could! as tens of thousands, from ignorance, from insensibility, or from recklessness, have done before her; and as tens of thousands more, from the same causes, will do after her.

The ceremony proceeded until it reached the part where the ring is placed upon the bride’s finger, and all went well enough until, as they were rising from the prayer of “Our Father,” the bride happened to lower her hand, and the ring, which was too large for her finger, dropped off, and rolled away and passed out of sight.

The ceremony ended, and the ring was sought for; but could not be found then:  and, I may as well tell you now, it has not been found yet.

Seeing at length that their search was quite fruitless, the gentlemen of the bridal train reluctantly gave up the ring for lost, and the whole party filed into the chancel to enter their names in the register, that lay for this purpose on the communion table.

The bridegroom first approached and wrote his.  It was a prolonged and sonorous roll of names, such as frequently compose the tail of a nobleman’s title: 

Malcolm—­Victor—­Stuart—­Douglass—­Gordon—­Dugald, Viscount Vincent.

Then the bride signed hers, and the witnesses theirs.

When Mr. Brudenell came to sign his own name as one of the witnesses, he happened to glance at the bridegroom’s long train of names.  He read them over with a smile at their length, but his eye fastened upon the last one—­“Dugald,” “Dugald”?  Herman Brudenell, like the immortal Burton, thought he had “heard that name before,” in fact, was sure he had “heard that name before!” Yes, verily; he had heard it in connection with his sister’s fatal flight, in which a certain Captain Dugald had been her companion!  And he resolved to make cautious inquiries of the viscount.  He had known Lord Vincent on the Continent, but he had either never happened to hear what his family name was, or if he had chanced to do so, he had forgotten the circumstances.  At all events, it was not until the instant in which he read the viscount’s signature in the register that he discovered the family name of Lord Vincent and the disreputable name of Eleanor Brudenell’s unprincipled lover to be the same.