brought you in like this. You will not mind
waiting outside, will you?--a minute only--while I explain--"

Romley bent his head and walked out, closing the door.

"Dear"--Hetty turned--"you must forgive me, but I could not rest
until I had brought him."

He had risen, and stood now with his face averted, gazing out of the
window where a row of clouts and linen garments on a clothes-line
blocked the view of an untidy back-yard. He had known that this
moment must come, but not that it would take him so soon and at
unawares. He let his anger rise while he considered what to answer;
for a man in the wrong will miss no excuse for losing his temper.

Hetty waited for a moment, then went on--"And I thought you had given
him the licence: that is what made me so anxious to find--"

A noise in the passage cut short her excuses: a woman's laugh.
Hetty knew of two women only in the house--the landlady who
had opened the door last night and a pert-looking slatternly servant
she had passed at the foot of the stairs on her way to the cathedral.
She could not tell to which of these the voice belonged: but the
laugh and the jest it followed--though she had not caught it--were
plainly at John Romley's expense, and the laugh was horrible.

It rang on her ears like a street-door bell. It seemed to tear down
the mystery of the house and scream out its secret. The young man at
the window turned against his will and met Hetty's eyes. They were
strained and staring.

She put out her hand. "Where is the licence?" she asked. "Give it
to me."

The change in her voice and manner confused him. "My dear child,
don't be silly," he blundered.

"Give me the licence."

"Tut, tut--let us understand one another like sensible folks.
You must not treat me like a boy, to be bounced in this fashion by
John Romley." He began to whip up his temper again. "Nasty tippling
parson! I've more than a mind to kick him into the street."

Her eyes widened on his with growing knowledge, growing pain: but
faith lived in them yet.

"I thought you had given him the licence, to be ready for us.
Yes, yes--you did say it!" Her hand went up to her bosom for his last
letter, which she had worn there until last night. Then she
remembered: she had left it upstairs. Having him, she had no more
need to wear it.

He read the gesture. "You are right, dear, and I forgot. I _did_ say
so, because I believed by the time the words reached you--or
thereabout