fiance of
another lady! You know, you surprise me, Michael--'Pon my word, you do!"

Michael laughed, it was really a huge joke.

"Yes, it is quite true. Well, just as I was going to ring and send
James for Bessie to talk it over with her, there was no end of a
smash--as you see--and a girl--a tourist--fell through the secret door.
I haven't opened it for five years. She was running away from a horrid
fellow she was engaged to, it seems, and fled into the passage, and the
door shut after her and she could not get out, so she pushed on in
here."

"It adds dramatic color to the story, the girl being engaged to someone
else--pray go on."

Mr. Fordyce had now picked up his cigar again. This preposterous tale no
longer interested him. He thought it even rather bad taste on the part
of his friend.

"All right!" Michael explained. "You need not believe me if you don't
like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff,
Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman
of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us
both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our
difficulties. We can easily get the bond annulled later on."

Henry Fordyce put down his cigar again.

"I am off to town to-night. You won't mind, will you?" Michael went on.
"Just to see if everything is all right, and to get her guardian's
consent and a special license, and I shall be back by the six o'clock
train on Thursday in time to get the ceremony over that night; and then,
by the early morning express, if you'll wait till then, we'll go South
together, and so for Paris and freedom!"

Henry actually rose from his chair.

"And the bride?" he asked.

Michael laughed. "Oh, she may go to the moon, for all I care; she leaves
directly after the ceremony with her certificate of marriage, which she
means to brandish in the face of her relations, who are staying at the
Inn, and so exit out of my life! It is only an affair of expediency."

"It is the affair of a madman."

Michael frowned, and his firm chin looked aggressive.

"It is nothing of the kind. You told me yourself that you would rather
marry old Bessie--a woman of eighty-four--than Violet Hatfield; and now,
when I have found a much more suitable person--a pretty little lady--you
begin to talk. My mind is made up, and there is an end of it."

Mr. Fordyce interrupted.

"Bessie would have been much more suitable--a