This was at last the triumphant realisation of her dream--she was wedding fortune, beauty, and power far beyond her wildest hopes.

The church itself was singing by the organs, radiant with its wax-tapers, and alive with the crowd of believers and priests, whom she knew to be around her on every side.

Never had the old building been more brilliant or filled with a more regal pomp, enlarged as it were in its holy, sacred luxury, by an expansion of happiness.
Angelique smiled again in the full knowledge that death was at her heart, celebrating its victory over her, in the midst of this glorious joy.

In entering the Cathedral she had glanced at the Chapel d'Hautecoeur, where slept Laurette and Balbine, the "Happy Dead," who passed away when very young, in the full happiness of their love.
At this last hour she was indeed perfect.

Victorious over herself, reclaimed, renewed, having no longer any feeling of passion or of pride at her triumph, resigned at the knowledge that her life was fast leaving her, in this beautiful Hosanna of her great friend, the blessed old church.