f Puritan origin?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"And this father?"

"Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort--he can't lift up his head if he
so much as suspects a reproach to his children."

Edward brooded. "I desire--as I told you, as I told her sister, as I
told my father last night--I desire to make her my wife. What can I do
more? Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!--it
will be murder if they force her to it! Where is she? To such a man as
that! Poor soul! I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it. Here--the
time is going. You know the man yourself."

"I know the man?" said Robert. "I've never set eyes on him--I've never
set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him. I had a sort
of feeling. Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young
fellow, and he must be."

"Before it's too late," Edward muttered hurriedly--"you know him--his
name is Sedgett."

Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.

"That Sedgett?" he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.

Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.

"Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!" cried Robert.
"Come on; come to the church. That foul dog?--Or you, stay where you
are. I'll go. He to be Dahlia's husband! They've seen him, and can't
see what he is!--cunning with women as that? How did they meet? Do you
know?--can't you guess?"

He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off. Bursting into the aisle, he
saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving
toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was
Rhoda.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in
Robert's lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a
movement of his limbs or of his mind, and alone. He showed no sign that
he expected the approach of any one. As mute and unremonstrant as a
fallen tree, nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands
lying open, the great figure of the old man kept this attitude as
of stiff decay through long sunny hours, and the noise of the London
suburb. Although the wedding people were strangely late, it was
unnoticed by him. When the door opened and Rhoda stepped into the room,
he was unaware that he had been waiting, and only knew that the hours
had somehow accumulated to a heavy burden upon him.

"She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up," Rhoda said.

"Let h