behind, otherwise."

"And you want me to find a minister?" she asked, with ready
comprehension.

"That's it!"--eagerly. "Bring him back with you. Some of the hotel
guests can act as witnesses. Make haste!"

Ruth hurried off to her own room. Before she put on her sun-helmet,
she paused before the mirror. Her wedding gown! She wondered if the
spirit of the unknown mother looked down upon her.

"All I want is to be happy!" she said aloud, as if she were asking
for something of such ordinary value that God would readily accord
it to her because there was so little demand for the commodity.

Thrilling, she began to dance, swirled, glided, and dipped.
Whenever ecstasy--any kind of ecstasy--filled her heart to
bursting, these physical expressions eased the pressure.

Fate has two methods of procedure--the sudden and the
long-drawn-out. In some instances she tantalizes the victim for
years and mocks him in the end. In others, she acts with the speed
and surety of the loosed arrow. In the present instance she did not
want any interference; she did not want the doctor's wisdom to edge
in between these two young fools and spoil the drama. So she brought
upon the stage the Reverend Henry Dolby, a preacher of means,
worldly-wise and kindly, cheery and rotund, who, with his wife and
daughter, had arrived at the Victoria that morning. Ruth met him in
the hall as he was following his family into the dining room. She
recognized the cloth at once, waylaid him, and with that directness
of speech particularly hers she explained what she wanted.

"To be sure I will, my child. I will be up with my wife and
daughter after lunch."

"We'll be waiting for you. You are very kind." Ruth turned back
toward the stairs.

Later, when the Reverend Henry Dolby entered the Spurlock room, his
wife and daughter trailing amusedly behind him, and beheld the
strained eagerness on the two young faces, he smiled inwardly and
indulgently. Here were the passionate lovers! What their past had
been he neither cared nor craved to know. Their future would be
glorious; he saw it in their eyes; he saw it in the beauty of their
young heads. Of course, at home there would have been questions.
Were the parents agreeable? Were they of age? Had the license been
procured? But here, in a far country, only the velvet manacles of
wedlock were necessary.

So, forthwith, without any preliminaries beyond introductions, he
began the ceremony; and shortly Ruth Enschede