them stood a tall old priest
who had a thin and gentle face.

Stradella sprang forward with outstretched hands, forgetting everything
except that Ortensia was before him. But he had not yet reached her side
when the priest was between them, laying one hand on his shoulder and
quietly checking him, though smiling kindly, as if he quite understood.

The Bravi had started when they first caught sight of the Venetian girl,
for neither of them had expected such rare beauty; and with the added
illusion of the gold-shot veil and the all-generous sunshine, it was
nothing less than transcendent. Trombin and Gambardella looked at each
other quietly, as they always did when the same thought struck them.

Meanwhile the tall old priest made the young couple kneel before the
little altar on one side of the sacristy, where two praying-stools had
been placed in readiness. Pina knelt down a little way behind her
mistress, and Cucurullo took his place at the same distance behind his
master; but Trombin went and stood on Ortensia's left and Gambardella on
Stradella's right, as witnesses for the bride and bridegroom
respectively.

Thus it was that the runaway couple were duly married and blessed in the
sacristy of San Domenico on that May morning, little dreaming why it had
all been so cleverly managed for them; but it was clear that Stradella
had been prepared for the event, since he produced two wedding rings of
different sizes and gave them to the priest to bless.

'I will,' he said, in answer to the latter's question.

'I will,' said Ortensia in a low tone, but by no means doubtfully.

'Ego conjungo vos,' the priest went on; and the rest was soon said, the
Bravi dropping on their knees at the benediction.

Then the sacristan brought out the register and laid it on the broad
polished table on which the vestments were folded, placing pens and ink
and the sand-box beside it; and the priest first wrote a few words, to
say that he had married the couple by a special dispensation from the
Archbishop of Ferrara; and Stradella and Ortensia signed their names,
and after them the Bravi, who indeed merely wrote 'Trombin' and
'Gambardella,' but managed to make their signatures almost illegible
with magnificent flourishes. The priest bade Pina and Cucurullo sign
too, as they said they could write, and the hunchback wrote 'Antonino
Cucurullo' in a small neat hand like a seminarist's, and Pina set down
her name as 'Filippina Landi.'

The pr