"Are you sure you will be happy with him, little Schnapsie?" he asked anxiously.
"You dear worrying old thing!"
"But if after marriage you quarrel, he will always throw it up to you that you are—"
"And I'll throw it up to him that he is a Christian, and oughtn't to quarrel."
He was silenced. But his heart thanked God that his dear old wife had been spared the coming ordeal.
"This too was for good," he murmured, in the Hebrew proverb.
And so the tragic day drew nigh.
X
One short week before, Daniel was wandering about, dazed by the near prospect. An unholy fascination drew him toward Chalk Farm, to gaze on the church in which the profane union would be perpetrated. Perhaps he ought even to go inside; to get over his first horror at being in such a building, so as not to betray himself during the actual ceremony.
As he drew near the heathen edifice he saw a striped awning, carriages, a bustle of people entering, a pressing, peeping crowd. A wedding!
Ah, good! There was no doubt now he must go in; he would see what this unknown ceremony in this unknown building was like. It would be a sort of rehearsal; it would help to steel him at the tragic moment. He was passing through the central doors with some other men, but a policeman motioned them to a side door. He shuffled timidly within.
Full as the church was, the chill stone spaces struck cold to his heart; all the vast alien life they typified froze his soul. The dread word Meshumad—apostate—seemed echoing and reëchoing from the cold pillars. He perceived his companions had bared their heads, and he hastily snatched off his rusty beaver. The unaccustomed sensation in his scalp completed his sense of unholiness.
Nothing seemed going on yet, but as he slipped into a seat in the aisle he became aware of an organ playing joyous preludes, almost jiggish. For a moment he wondered dully what there was to be gay about, and his eyes filled with bitter tears.
A craning forward in the nondescript congregation made the old man peer forward.
He saw, at the far end of the church, a sort of platform upon which four men, in strange, flowing robes, stood under a cross. He hid his eyes from the sight of the symbol that had overshadowed his ancestors' lives. When he opened his eyes again the men were kneeling. Would he have to kneel, he wondered. Would his old joints have to assume that pagan posture? Presently four bridesmaids, shielded by great glowing bouquets, appeared on the platform, and descending, passed with measured theatric pace down the farther avenue, too remote for his clear vision. His neighbours stood up to stare at them, and he rose, too. And throughout the organ bubbled out its playful cadenzas.
A stir and a buzz swept through the church. A procession began to file in. At its head was a pale, severe young man, supported by a cheerful young man. Other young men followed; then the bridesmaids reappeared. And finally—target of every glance—there passed a glory of white veil supported by an old military looking man in a satin waistcoat.
Ah, that would be he and Schnapsie, then. Up that long avenue, beneath all these curious Christian eyes, he, Daniel Peyser, would have to walk. He tried to rehearse it mentally now, so that he might not shame her; he paced pompously and stiffly, with beautiful Schnapsie on his arm, a glory of white veil. He saw himself slowly reaching the platform, under the chilling cross; then everything swam before him, and he sank shuddering into his seat. His little Schnapsie! She was being sucked up into all this hateful heathendom, to the seductive music of satanic orchestras.
He sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that the organ had ceased, and that some preacher's recitative had begun instead. When he looked up again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague, as through a mist. He passed his hand over his clouded brow. Of a sudden a sentence of the recitative pierced sharply to his brain:—
"Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."
O God of Israel! Then it was the last chance! He sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony: "No, no, she must not marry him! She must not!"
All heads turned toward the shabby old man. An electric shiver ran through the church. The bride paled; a bridesmaid shrieked; the minister, taken aback, stood silent. A white-gloved usher hurried up.
"Do you forbid the banns?" called the minister.
The old man's mind awoke, and groped mistily.
"Come, what have you to say?" snapped the usher.
"I—I—nothing," he murmured in awed confusion.
"He is drunk," said the usher. "Out with you, my man." He hustled Daniel toward the side door, and let it swing behind him.
But Daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spectators outside. He hung miserably about the vestibule till the Wedding March swelled in ironic triumph, and the human outpour swept him into the street.
XI
His abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled Schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not elicit that anything had happened.
In the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage items, paused on a big-headed paragraph.
"I FORBID THE BANNS!"
STRANGE SCENE AT A CHALK FARM CHURCH.
When she had finished the paragraph and read another, the first began to come back to her, shadowed with a strange suspicion. Why, this was the very church—? A Jewish-looking old man—! Great heavens! Then all this had been mere pose, self-sacrifice. And his wits were straying under the too heavy burden! Only blind craving for her own happiness could have made her believe that the mental habits of seventy years could be broken off.
"Well, father," she said brightly, "you will be losing me very soon now."
His lips quivered into a pathetic smile.
"I am very glad." He paused, struggling with himself. "If you are sure you will be happy!"
"But haven't we talked that over enough, father?"
"Yes—but you know—if a quarrel arose, he would always throw it up—that—"
"Nonsense, nonsense," she laughed. But the repetition of the old thought struck her poignantly as a sign of maundering wits.
"And you are sure you will get along together?"
"Quite sure."
"Then I am glad." He drew her to him, and kissed her.
She broke down and wept under the conviction of his lying. He became the comforter in his turn.
"Don't cry, little Schnapsie, don't cry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Alfred is a good man, and I am sure, even if you quarrel, he will never throw it—" The mumbling passed into a kiss on her wet cheek.
XII
That night, after a long passionate vigil in her bedroom, little Schnapsie wrote a letter:—