Now, George was kneeling beside his wife in the choir, before the lit-up altar. The new Bishop of Tangiers, crozier in hand and miter on head, made his appearance from the vestry to join them together in the Eternal name. He put the customary questions, exchanged the rings, uttered the words that bind like chains, and addressed the newly-wedded couple a Christian allocution. He was a tall, stout man, one of those handsome prelates to whom a rounded belly lends dignity.

The sound of sobs caused several people to look round. Madame Walter was weeping, with her face buried in her hands. She had to give way. What could she have done else? But since the day when she had driven from her room her daughter on her return home, refusing to embrace her; since the day when she had said, in a low voice, to Du Roy, who had greeted her ceremoniously on again making his appearance: “You are the vilest creature I know of; never speak to me again, for I shall not answer you,” she had been suffering intolerable and unappeasable tortures. She hated Susan with a keen hatred, made up of exasperated passion and heartrending jealousy, the strange jealousy of a mother and mistress⁠—unacknowledgable, ferocious, burning like a new wound. And now a bishop was marrying them⁠—her lover and her daughter⁠—in a church, in presence of two thousand people, and before her. And she could say nothing. She could not hinder it. She could not cry out: “But that man belongs to me; he is my lover. This union you are blessing is infamous!”

Some ladies, touched at the sight, murmured: “How deeply the poor mother feels it!”

The bishop was declaiming: “You are among the fortunate ones of this world, among the wealthiest and most respected. You, sir, whom your talent raises above others; you who write, who teach, who advise, who guide the people, you who have a noble mission to fulfill, a noble example to set.”