s moment was precisely
what hers had been five minutes sooner: they were never to be husband and
wife.

But she did not continue her questions, for the simplest of all reasons:
hasty footsteps were audible in the entrance, and the parson was seen
coming up the aisle, the clerk behind him wiping the beads of
perspiration from his face. The somewhat sorry clerical specimen shook
hands with them, and entered the vestry; and the clerk came up and opened
the book.

'The poor gentleman's memory is a bit topsy-turvy,' whispered the latter.
'He had got it in his mind that 'twere a funeral, and I found him
wandering about the cemetery a-looking for us. However, all's well as
ends well.' And the clerk wiped his forehead again.

'How ill-omened!' murmured Viviette.

But the parson came out robed at this moment, and the clerk put on his
ecclesiastical countenance and looked in his book. Lady Constantine's
momentary languor passed; her blood resumed its courses with a new
spring. The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon the
palpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto with
more fervency than they.

Lady Constantine (as she continued to be called by the outside world,
though she liked to think herself the Mrs. St. Cleeve that she legally
was) had told Green that she might be expected at Welland in a day, or
two, or three, as circumstances should dictate. Though the time of
return was thus left open it was deemed advisable, by both Swithin and
herself, that her journey back should not be deferred after the next day,
in case any suspicions might be aroused. As for St. Cleeve, his comings
and goings were of no consequence. It was seldom known whether he was at
home or abroad, by reason of his frequent seclusion at the column.

Late in the afternoon of the next day he accompanied her to the Bath
station, intending himself to remain in that city till the following
morning. But when a man or youth has such a tender article on his hands
as a thirty-hour bride it is hardly in the power of his strongest reason
to set her down at a railway, and send her off like a superfluous
portmanteau. Hence the experiment of parting so soon after their union
proved excruciatingly severe to these. The evening was dull; the breeze
of autumn crept fitfully through every slit and aperture in the town; not
a soul in the world seemed to notice or care about anything they did.
Lady Constantine sighed; and the