ef over her mouth in such fashion that she
was gagged, but could still breathe through the nostrils.

Elsa struggled a little, then was quiet, and turned her piteous eyes on
Adrian, who stepped forward and opened his lips.

"You remember the alternative," said his father in a low voice, and he
stopped.

"I suppose," broke in Father Thomas, "that we may at any rate reckon
upon the consent, or at least upon the silence of the Heer bridegroom."

"You may reckon on his silence, Father Thomas," replied Ramiro.

Then the ceremony began. They dragged Elsa to the table. Thrice she
flung herself to the ground, and thrice they lifted her to her feet, but
at length, weary of the weight of her body, suffered her to rest upon
her knees, where she remained as though in prayer, gagged like some
victim on the scaffold. It was a strange and brutal scene, and every
detail of it burned itself into Adrian's mind. The round, rude room,
with its glowing fire of turfs and its rough, oaken furniture, half in
light and half in dense shadow, as the lamp-rays chanced to fall; the
death-like, kneeling bride, with a white cloth across her tortured face;
the red-chopped, hanging-lipped hedge priest gabbling from a book, his
back almost turned that he might not see her attitude and struggles; the
horrible, unsexed women; the flat-faced villain, Simon, grinning by the
hearth; Ramiro, cynical, mocking, triumphant, and yet somewhat anxious,
his one bright eye fixed in mingled contempt and amusement upon him,
Adrian--those were its outlines. There was something else also that
caught and oppressed his sense, a sound which at the time Adrian thought
he heard in his head alone, a soft, heavy sound with a moan in it, not
unlike that of the wind, which grew gradually to a dull roar.

It was over. A ring had been forced on to Elsa's unwilling hand, and,
until the thing was undone by some competent and authorised Court, she
was in name the wife of Adrian. The handkerchief was unbound, her hands
were loosed, physically, Elsa was free again, but, in that day and land
of outrage, tied, as the poor girl knew well, by a chain more terrible
than any that hemp or steel could fashion.

"Congratulations! Senora," muttered Father Thomas, eyeing her nervously.
"I fear you felt a little faint during the service, but a sacrament----"

"Cease your mockings, you false priest," cried Elsa. "Oh! let the swift
vengeance of God fall upon every one of you, and first of all