of recognition she glanced from one to
another, until her eyes fell upon good Parson Shurtleff watching her
with a gentle wonder in his face. It was for him that she had been
looking. She went up to him immediately, and laid a tremulous hand upon
his arm. She tried to smile, but the effort was so plain and her face so
pale that an anxiety diffused itself through the assembly; it was felt
that her presence here alone showed that something had happened, and her
expression, that it was something bad. She did not seem even to hear the
minister's kind greeting, and she was as little moved by the wonder and
scrutiny about her as if she had been alone with him. At Mistress
Archdale's reiterated question if Katie were ill, she shook her head in
silence. Some thought held her in its grasp, some fear that she was
struggling to speak.

"It is a cruel jest," she cried at last, "but it must be only a jest.
The man's horse is blown, he came so fast. And he insisted on seeing me
and would give this only into my own hands; his message was that it was
life and death, that I must read it at once before the--" She stopped
with a shudder, and held out a paper that she had been grasping; it was
crumpled by the tightening of her fingers over it. There was a sound of
footsteps and voices in the hall; the minister looked toward the door,
and listened. "You must read it now, this instant, before they come in,"
cried Elizabeth: "it must be done; I don't dare not to have you; and
tell me that it has no power, it is only a wicked jest; and throw it
into the fire. Oh, quick, be quick."

Parson Shurtleff unfolded the paper with the haste of age, youth's
deliberateness, and began to read at last. At the same instant a hand
outside was laid on the latch of the door. The room was in a breathless
hush. The door was swung slowly open by a servant and the bride and
bridegroom came in, stopping just beyond the threshold as Katie caught
sight of Elizabeth, and with a wondering face waited for her to come to
her place. But the minister, not glancing up, went sternly on with the
paper; and Elizabeth's gaze was fixed on his face; she had drawn a step
away from him; and her hands were pressed over one another. All at once
he uttered an exclamation of dismay, and turned to her, a dread coming
into his face as he met her eyes.

"What does it mean?" he gasped. "Heaven help us, is it true?"

"Oh, it can't be, it can't be," she cried. "Give me the paper. I had to