zled him.

"Where are you going to stay?" he asked.

"I am staying at the Savoy," she replied. "What am I to do?"

In as few words as possible he told her where the ceremony was to be
performed, and the hour at which she must leave the hotel.

"We will take the night train for the Continent," he said.

"But your work, Frank?"

He laughed.

"Oh, blow work!" he cried hilariously. "I cannot think of work to-day."

At two-fifteen he was waiting in the vestry for the girl's arrival,
chatting with his friend the rector. He had arranged for the ceremony to
be performed at two-thirty; and the witnesses, a glum verger and a woman
engaged in cleaning the church, sat in the pews of the empty building,
waiting to earn the guinea which they had been promised.

The conversation was about nothing in particular--one of those empty,
purposeless exchanges of banal thought and speech characteristic of such
an occasion.

At two-thirty Frank looked at his watch and walked out of the church to
the end of the road. There was no sign of the girl. At two-forty-five he
crossed to a providential tobacconist and telephoned to the Savoy and
was told that the lady had left half an hour before.

"She ought to be here very soon," he said to the priest. He was a little
impatient, a little nervous, and terribly anxious.

As the church clock struck three, the rector turned to him.

"I am afraid I cannot marry you to-day, Mr. Merrill," he said.

Frank was very pale.

"Why not?" he asked quickly. "Miss Nuttall has probably been detained by
the traffic or a burst tire. She will be here very shortly."

The minister shook his head and hung up his white surplice in the
cupboard.

"The law of the land, my dear Mr. Merrill," he said, "does not allow
weddings after three in the afternoon. You can come along to-morrow
morning any time after eight."

There was a tap at the door, and Frank swung round. It was not the girl,
but a telegraph boy. He snatched the buff envelope from the lad's hand
and tore it open. It read simply:

The wedding cannot take place.

It was unsigned.

At two-fifteen that afternoon May had passed through the vestibule of
the hotel, and her foot was on the step of the taxicab when a hand fell
upon her arm, and she turned in alarm to meet the searching eyes of
Jasper Cole.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry, May?"

She flushed and drew her arm away with a decisive gesture.

"I have nothing to say to y