shaking off Maude, darted forward and caught his arm.

"You will tell me one thing at least: Is Anne _not_ going to marry
Colonel Barnaby?"

"Sir!" thundered the doctor. "Going to marry _whom_?"

"I heard it," he faltered. "I believed it to be the truth."

"You may have heard it, but you did not believe it, Lord Hartledon. You
knew Anne better. Do not add this false excuse to the rest."

Pleasant! Infinitely so for the bridegroom's tingling ears. Dr. Ashton
walked out of the chapel, and Val stood for a few moments where he was,
looking up and down in the dim light. It might be that in his mental
confusion he was deliberating what his course should be; but thought and
common sense came to him, and he knew he could not desert Lady Maude,
having brought matters so far to an end.

"Proceed," he said to the young clergyman, stalking back to the altar.
"Get--it--over quickly."

Mr. Carr unfolded his arms and approached Lord Hartledon. He was the only
one who had caught the expression of the bride's face when Hartledon
dropped her arm. It spoke of bitter malice; it spoke, now that he had
returned to her, of an evil triumph; and it occurred to Thomas Carr to
think that he should not like a wife of his to be seen with that
expression on her bridal face.

"Lord Hartledon, you must excuse me if I do not remain to countenance
this wedding," he said in low but distinct tones. "Before hearing what I
have heard from that good man, I had hesitated about it; but I was lost
in surprise. Fare you well. I shall have left by the time you quit the
chapel."

He held out his hand, and Val mechanically shook it. The retreating steps
of Mr. Carr, following in the wake of Dr. Ashton, were heard, as Lord
Hartledon spoke again to the clergyman with irritable sharpness:

"Why don't you begin?"

And the countess-dowager fanned herself complacently, and neither she nor
Maude cared for the absence of a groomsman. But Maude was not quite
hardened yet; and the shame of her situation was tingeing her eyelids.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STRANGER.

Lord Hartledon was leading his bride through the chapel at the conclusion
of the ceremony, when his attention was caught by something outside one
of the windows. At first he thought it was a black cat curled up in some
impossible fashion, but soon saw it was a dark human face. And that face
he discovered to be Mr. Pike's, peering earnestly in.

"Hedges, send that man away. How dare he intrud