show it to you, but now you've seen that it must be all false. Give it
to me. Look, they are coming," she entreated. "Think of her, be ready
for them. Oh, burn this. Can't you? Can't you?" and her eyes devoured
him in an agony of pleading.

"Stop!" he said, drawing back his hand. Then in a moment, "Is any of it
true, this wicked jest at a sacred thing? Was that all so?"

"Yes."

By this time the scene had become very different from the programme so
carefully arranged. The bride and groom had indeed gone across the room
and were standing before the minister. But the latter, so far from
having made any preparations to begin the ceremony, stood with his eyes
on the paper, his face more and more pale and perplexed.

"What is it?" cried Master Archdale, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, what does it all mean?" asked the Colonel, advancing toward the
minister, and showing his irritation by his frown, his flush, and the
abruptness of his speech usually so suave.

"I hardly know myself," returned Shurtleff looking from one to the
other.

"Let us have the ceremony at once, then," said Master Archdale
authoritatively. "Why should we delay?"

"I cannot, until I have looked into this," answered the minister in a
respectful tone.

"Nonsense," cried the Colonel with an authority that few contested.
"Proceed at once."

"I cannot," repeated the minister, and his quiet voice had in it the
firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His
opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that
the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest
heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible.

"What is all this?" demanded Stephen, holding Katie's arm still more
firmly in his own and facing Mr. Shurtleff with eyes of indignant
protest. As he received no immediate answer, he turned to Elizabeth.
"Mistress Royal," he said, "can you explain this unseemly interruption?"

Then all the company, who for the moment had forgotten her share in the
transaction, turned their eyes upon her again.

"That wicked jest that we had all forgotten," she said, looking at him
an instant with a wildness of pain in her eyes. Then she turned to
Katie's fair, pale face full of wonder and distress at the unguessed
obstacle, and with a smothered cry dropped her face in her hands, and
stood motionless and unheeded in the greater excitement. For now Mr.
Shurtleff had begun to speak.