Then this brief service over, they began to disperse.  Without any scramble or rush, but in perfect order and with quiet and reverent demeanour, they left their seats and began to make their way out.  None of them were seen gossiping together, or smiling or nodding over each other’s shoulders as is very often the case when a congregation disperses from a fashionable church.  For these people in their worship of the Creator, found something reverent, something earnest, something true, valuable and necessary to daily living,—­ and though there were two peaceful-looking constables stationed at the door of egress, their services were not required to either keep order or compel any of those thousands of poor to “move on.”  They kept order for themselves, and were too busy with practical life and thought, to hang about or gossip on the way to their various homes.  Several members of the congregation on hearing that their friend Leigh was going to take his marriage vows before them all, had provided themselves with flowers, and these managed to pass in front of the platform where, simply and without ostentation, they handed up their little bouquets and clusters of such blossoms as they had been able to obtain and afford in winter,—­violets especially, and white chrysanthemums, and one or two rare roses.  These floral offerings meant much sacrifice on the part of those who gave them,—­ and the tears filled Sylvie’s eyes as she noted the eagerness with which poor women with worn sad faces, and hands wrinkled and brown with toil, handed up their little posies for her to take from them, or laid them with a touching humility at her feet.  What a wonderful wedding hers was, she thought!—­far removed from all the world of fashion, without any of the hypocritical congratulations of “society” friends,—­without the sickening, foolish waste, expense and artificiality, which nowadays makes a marriage a mere millinery parade.  She had spoken her vows before thousands whom her husband had helped and rescued from heathenism and misery, and all their good wishes and prayers for her happiness were wedding gifts such as no money could purchase.  With a heart full of emotion and gratitude she watched the crowd break up and disappear, till when the last few were passing out of the building, she said to her husband—­

“Let us leave the flowers they have given me here, Aubrey,—­here, just at the foot of the Cross where you have so often spoken to them.  I shall feel they will bring me a blessing!”

“It shall be as you wish, sweetheart!” he answered tenderly,—­“and I must thank you for having entered so readily into the spirit of this strange marriage before my poor friends, Sylvie,—­for it must have seemed very strange to you!—­and yet believe me,—­no more binding one was ever consummated!” He took her hand and kissed it,—­then turned to Cardinal Bonpre, who had risen and was gazing round the bare common building with dreamy eyes of wistful wonderment.