“What are these?” demanded the reverend gentleman, unfolding the parchment.

“Oh, it’s only my little joker, that took his right bower and won the trick,” laughed the woman.

“I don’t understand,” said the rector, while Abel Force, Thomas Grandiere and William Elk drew near and looked over his shoulders at the document.

“Well, read it, and then maybe you will understand. Don’t you see it is the marriage certificate?” demanded the woman.

“It is, indeed,” said the rector, examining the document. “It is, indeed, a certificate of the marriage of Angus Anglesea, colonel in the Honorable East India service, Anglewood Manor, Lancashire, England, and Ann Maria Wright, widow, of Wild Cats’ Gulch, California, signed by the officiating minister, Paul Minitree, pastor of St. Sebastian’s Parish, Sebastian, California, and witnessed by Henry Powers, Margaret Rayburn and Philomena Schubert! It is dated August 1, 18—. Col. Anglesea, what explanation can you give of this?” sternly demanded the rector, while the severe faces of the other men emphasized the question.

“Why, he can’t give any! The joker takes every trick! It’s the highest card in the pack, and I have just played it!”

“The thing is a forgery! I never was in California in my life! And I never set eyes on this woman before this hour! It is a forgery, I say!” exclaimed the colonel, so positively, so confidently, so authoritatively that the men were once more puzzled.

“Oh, it’s a misdeal, then, is it? I’ll prove that it isn’t!” said the stranger. “Now, then, gentlemen, you can test the truth for yourselves. Money is no object to you, particularly in such a case as this. You can telegraph to the Rev. Father Paul Minitree, and ask him if this marriage certificate is genuine, and you can telegraph every word of the certificate, word for word. Ask him to compare it with the entry in the parish register of August 1, 18—, and to telegraph the answer, at your expense, mind you; and, though it will be expensive, it will be worth the money, and you won’t mind the cost,” said the woman.

This settled the question.

Abel Force, the man most deeply concerned of any man present, had made no violent demonstration. He had controlled his just wrath all through the scene. His reverence for the sanctuary had aided his habitual self-government in this ordeal.

Now, turning his back on Col. Anglesea, he said to Leonidas, who had been a silent spectator of the drama enacting around him:

“Go, my dear boy, and order the carriages. I shall take my wife and daughters home.”

Le nodded, and went elbowing his way through the crowd—that made room for him—to do his errand.

“Col. Anglesea, we will hereafter be compelled to dispense with your society at Mondreer. Your effects shall be sent to the Calvert Hotel, subject to your orders,” he said, turning for a moment to his late guest.

“Sir, you abduct my wife by violence! You do it at your own peril!” exclaimed the braggart.

The Maryland gentleman bowed gravely, but deigned no reply in words.

“Madam,” he said, turning to the stranger, “if you will accept a seat in our carriage, and give us the privilege of your company at our house, Mrs. Force and myself would like to talk further with you on this subject.”

“Oh, yes, thanky’! That I will! For I have got lots and loads to tell you about that grand vilyun! You needn’t think I came here to stop the marriage because I cared for him! Not I! I’m that sick of the beast that the very sight of him is tartar emetic! What i’ the name o’ sense ever come over a purty gal like your daughter to take up with a man like him? And a man older and uglier than her own father? Good land! I didn’t mean to say that! I beg your pardon, sir; I didn’t indeed! I meant to say a man not nearly so young and handsome as her own father! That was it!” exclaimed the stranger.

Mr. Force bowed his acknowledgment of her apology, and then led her up to the pew occupied by his wife and daughters, and introduced her as follows:

“Mrs. Col. Angus Anglesea, my dear. Mrs. Anglesea, my wife, Mrs. Force; our eldest daughter, Miss Force; our younger daughters, Misses Wynnette and Elva; our friend, Miss Meeke.”

When rather embarrassed bows and courtesies were exchanged, Mr. Force added:

“Mrs. Anglesea has been so kind as to accept an invitation to return home with us.”

“Yes,” put in the lady referred to. “Yes, your old man asked me, and I accepted, because I have got such loads and loads and loads to tell you about that grand vilyun. Didn’t he come nigh doing for that lamb? Never mind, honey”—this to the half-conscious Odalite—“I know it seems hard for you, ’specially if you was fond of him—though why you should ‘a’ been—Lord! Anyhow, bad as it is now, it would ‘a’ been a heap worse if he’d ‘a’ married you and then you’d found out as he had another wife a-living.”

Odalite took no notice of this speech. Wynnette answered:

“Oh, you needn’t fret your nerves to fiddle strings about that—I mean you need not distress yourself, ma’am. She hates him, and so do I. And so does Elva. In spite of prayer book and catechism, we hate him. We can’t help it.”

“Eh? What’s that you say?” inquired Mrs. Anglesea. “You hate him? Then why, in the name o’ common sense, did she want to marry, and you all let her, for?”

“It was Old Scratch’s doings—I mean it was Satanic agency,” Wynnette explained.

At this moment Leonidas Force came up, and said to his cousin:

“The carriages are ready sir. I spoke to the rector, sir, and, with his leave, had them brought around to the vestry door, so that you can all go out that way, and avoid the crowd.”

“Thank you, Le. Dear, kind fellow! It was very good and thoughtful of you. Come, love. Come, children. Le, give your arm to this lady. Mrs. Anglesea, let me introduce my relative, Mr. Leonidas Force.”

“Oh, Lord! I know the fellow. Knew him before I knew you,” said the woman, very unceremoniously appropriating Le’s arm.

Mr. and Mrs. Force led the way, supporting their drooping daughter between them.

Le followed with the California lady.

And Miss Meeke and the two little girls brought up the rear.

They passed through the chancel into the vestry, where they found the rector had preceded them, to wait and offer such sympathetic condolence as he might.

“What do you think of this baseness, reverend sir?” inquired Mr. Force.

“It may be premature to judge before all the evidence is in, but it seems as if your late guest is an impostor, if not a criminal.”

“I feel sure that there can be no doubt upon that subject.”

“If I can be of any service, pray command me at any time,” said the rector.

“I thank you very much. I think I will have to trouble you with two commissions. First, to tell our friends in there that, under existing circumstances, there can be no reception at our house to-day.”

“I will do so.”

“And, also, I must ask you to telegraph to St. Sebastian, as the woman advised, for further proof of her claim. Here is my pocketbook. Don’t spare it in the cause. Could you spare an hour or two to come up to my house to-morrow?” inquired Mr. Force.

“I will take the time, and make it a point to be there.”

“Come to dinner, if you please, sir. You know our hour,” said Mrs. Force.

“Thank you, madam,” replied the minister, without further committing himself.

Then the party took leave of their pastor, and went out by the back door to enter their carriage.

Abel Force handed his wife, his eldest daughter and their guest into the first carriage, which he entered after them, the party of four filling the interior.

Le handed Miss Meeke and his two young cousins into the second carriage, and followed them.

And the little procession left the churchyard, and took their way through the grove to the turnpike road leading to Mondreer.

Meanwhile, the whole congregation of wedding guests lingered in the church, and gathered into groups to talk over the strange events that had just happened before their eyes.

They were not disappointed, those wedding guests. Far from that. They had got so much more than they expected! They had not only seen the bride, the bridegroom, the bridesmaids, the bride’s mother, and all their dresses, which had been made in New York, after the latest fashion; they had not only seen the whole marriage ceremony performed, and noted the demeanor of every one concerned in it, from the rector who read the rites to the smallest bridesmaid who held the glove; they had not only seen all these pageantries which they had expected to see, but they had seen a great deal more than they had bargained for. They had witnessed the performance of a startling drama in real life—the arrest of a marriage by the sudden appearance of the would-be bridegroom’s wife.

Now, they had got a great deal more than they had looked for, besides having something to talk about all the rest of their lives.

They could not leave the church, though the dinner hour was at hand, and most of them had far to go to reach their own homes.

They collected in little crowds to discuss the interruption.

“Who was the woman, did anybody know? When did she come to the neighborhood? Had any one seen or heard of her before to-day?”

Such questions as these went around.

At last some one said that the stranger had been staying at Miss Sibby Bayard’s for the last week.

And immediately Miss Sibby Bayard became the center of attraction and the most important person in the assembly.

The people crowded around her, plied her with a score of questions before she could answer one.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, at last, impatiently. “Yes! She has been staying at my house for five days past. She came from Califoundery, passenger in the ship where Roland was third mate. Yes! The boy fetched her to me, ’cause she had business in this neighborhood.”

“Did you know the nature of her business?” asked the fiery, red-headed, hot-tempered, little William Elk.

“Never dreamed of her doing this here. Thought she was a widdy woman. Thought her business was money. Why, I fetched her to church this morning myself, without a notion that she wanted to come here for anything but just to see the wedding. And she was awful anxious to get here before the ceremony was begun.”

“It is a great pity that you did not arrive before it was finished,” said the tall, dark, gloomy Thomas Grandiere.

“So it were. I can’t gainsay that. And so we should ‘a’ been here if it hadn’t been for the stubborn nater of that mule o’ mine; for, you see, I had no other conveyance, and had to drive my wisitor here in the cart. And, if ever Old Scratch got into a brute beast, he got into that mule this morning. Couldn’t get him out of a creep to save my life! And he balked so, coming up Indian Creek Hill, that I thought he would have upset us into the water—and it froze over! So we didn’t get here till after the ceremony was over. There, that is all I know about it! Miss Hedge and Miss Sukey Grandiere spent an afternoon and took tea at my house, along with her, and maybe they can tell you something,” said the old lady.

And immediately she was deserted in favor of the sisters, who became, in their turn, the center of interest.

But these ladies had really very little to communicate.

Then the curiosity of the crowd took another direction.

“We were all invited to the wedding reception, but, of course, we are not expected to go now,” said Mrs. Hedge.

“But it might seem like an offense if we didn’t,” suggested Miss Grandiere.

And people were divided on the subject until the rector appeared, requested a hearing, and, with the apologies and regrets of Mr. and Mrs. Force, announced that there could be no reception held at Mondreer that day.

So, at length, the congregation reluctantly separated and went home.