per!"

"Not so fast; you have not heard all," he answered coolly. "I understand
the little game you have been playing, madame, you and your two clever
nieces. You have plotted to frighten Dainty to death, but foiled in
that, you kidnaped her at the eleventh hour, hoping to frighten me into
marrying one of your nieces by the threat of disinheritance; but your
malicious scheme has failed. There exists an insuperable objection to
my marriage with Olive or Ela."

"Insuperable?" she muttered, incredulously.

"Yes; I am a married man already."

A bolt of lightning would not have startled her as much as those calmly
spoken words.

It was her turn now to stare speechlessly, while Love continued,
earnestly:

"You are detected in your hellish plotting, madame. The proof of it is
in that letter there. A base forgery, since Dainty Chase could not
possibly have written it--Dainty Ellsworth, I should say rather, for she
has been my wife two weeks."

"Your wife?" she faltered, wildly.

"Yes; there was a secret marriage two weeks ago, designed to prevent
just what has happened now--some treachery on the part of the three
women who hated Dainty and were trying to work her ill. Yes, I
understand your game; as I said just now, Dainty was kidnaped, and you
know where she is, but your malice can not undo the fact that she is my
wife, and my inheritance safe. I go now to break the truth to the
wedding guests, and their indignation will compel you to restore me my
bride!"

He rushed from the room, heedless of her shrieks for him to stay, and
sought the thronged parlor, where the disappointed guests waited for an
explanation.

Within the door he paused, raised his hand, and began:

"My dear friends, I--"

The sentence stopped abruptly, for through the window near by hurtled a
bullet, sent by a madman's brutal hand. It crashed through his head, and
he fell senseless and bleeding to the floor.

CHAPTER XX.

THE END OF THE DAY.

Ah, how terrible a _finale_ to a birthday wedding that had dawned so
fairly and been anticipated with such happiness.

The bride mysteriously vanished, the bridegroom weltering in his blood!
Both the victims of wrong and crime heinous enough to make the very
angels turn away from watching such a wicked world.

Yet the sun shone on as brightly, the flowers bloomed as fairly, the
birds sang as sweetly as if two beautiful young lives had not been
blasted in their happiest hour.

Instantly th