They said the beauty of her wedding could have made angels weep. That her glowing countenance reflected the blessing of God, that surely she was a seraph sent to Earth to bless mortals with her song.

She'd smiled so radiantly at Raoul, as Mme Giry walked her down the aisle and set her hand in his. She'd glowed at him, so that everything near her seemed to be bathed in the light of Heaven, a light which brightened and beautified. Her voice was sweet and melodic as she spoke her vows, and her kiss was light and blushing, a virginal bride's. Even his aristo family could not find fault with their son's lovely bride.

Arm in arm, Christine and Raoul had left the tiny chapelle, climbed into the coach, which was decked in flowers, and driven to the Chagny city estate, where they would be alone but for the servants, to spend their wedding night before departing for their honey moon.

The coachman, the manservant and five maids saw her enter the house, saw her take dinner with her laughing husband, both young people radiant in their joy, her face alight from the inside with some celestial emitance that rendered her almost painfully beautiful.

No one saw her leave. For all they knew, she was with her new husband all night long, involved in the business of newlyweds.

No one saw her slip from her marriage bed at the wisest hour of the morning, leaving her wedding band and the engagement ring on her bedside table as she dressed ans slipped out of the house. There was no carriage driver to question, for she walked to her destination, dressed in black as dark as the shadows she clung to. There was no one in the chapel next to her father's graveyard, when she slipped in and sank to her knees at the altar. No witness when she slipped a thin gold band onto finger, where Raoul's ring had settled mere hours before. No one heard as she wept for her Angel of Music, the man she loved; a man who was now dead, killed by the gendarmes as he fled, the mere preposterous nature of his ever being caught by those fools confirming her idea that he was dead by his own hand.

She was alone as she rose, and settled in the pew, singing softly to herself of night music. Alone when she opened her eyes from a light doze to find herself circled by glowing figures, and one man, face for once unmarred and unmasked, holding out a gloved black hand. She hesitated not for an instant to take his hand and be drawn into the fold of angels, borne away to her domain, the angels of music hand in hand.

No one was there was her life was carried away on the night wind, tears and song on her lips. No one was there until the priest came to light the candles and found the beautiful woman he'd married the day before.

They did not know what to say when they found her, dead, in the pew of the very chapel she had been wed in the morning before, only hours before she and her new husband were to leave on their tour of Europe, a gold wedding band that in no way resembled the de Chagny ring that lay by her bed, her body totally unharmed, with a beatific smile on her tear-stained face.