But that was not to be yet; they were to go home first, and when they had learned something of what home-life would be together, then they could go abroad.
Lady Peters went back to Verdun Royal on the same morning; her task ended with the marriage.

She took back with her innumerable messages for the duchess.

As she stood at the carriage-door, she--so little given to demonstration--took the young wife into her arms.
"Good-by, Madaline--or I should say now, Lady Arleigh--good-by, and may Heaven bless you! I did not love you at first, my dear, and I thought my old friend was doing a foolish thing; but now I love you with all my heart; you are so fair and wise, so sweet and pure, that in making you his wife he has chosen more judiciously than if he had married the daughter of a noble house.

That is my tribute to you, Madaline; and to it I add, may Heaven bless you, and send you a happy life!" Then they parted; but, as she went home through all the glory of the sunlit day, Lady Peters did not feel quite at ease.
"I wish," she said to herself, "that he had not dropped the Wedding-ring; it has made me feel uncomfortable." Bride and bridegroom had one of the blithest, happiest journeys ever made.

What cloud could rise in such a sky as theirs.