She was about to break rudely through from the old world of simple routine and homely pleasure, and to cast herself unthinking into a new world of passion and chance, and take the consequences of such a step, let them be what they might.

She felt as if she was the possessor of some guilty secret, and felt sometimes as if some one would rise in church and denounce her.

How would all these quiet folks talk of her to-morrow morning?
That was not to be thought of.

She must harden her heart and think of nothing.

Only that tomorrow she would be far away with her lover.
Poor Mary! many a woman, and many a man, who sat so quiet and calm in the old church that afternoon, had far guiltier secrets than any you ever had, to trouble them, and yet they all drank, slept, and died, as quietly as many honest and good men.