Thus Lizzie heard--all that there was to hear: and her mind grew more perplexed as time went on. She had the strange ignorances and the still more strange beliefs common to her kind. She put her faith in those popular glosses of the law, at which the better instructed laugh, but which are to the poor and unlearned like the canons of faith. It was the very eve of the wedding before her growing anxiety forced her to action. When Mr. Wilberforce was told that a young woman wanted to see him, he was arranging with his wife the train by which they were to go up to town to the wedding, not without comments on the oddness of the proceeding, which Mrs. Wilberforce thought was but another of the many signs of the times--which severed all bonds, and made a nasty big hotel better than your own house. The rector was in the habit of taking his wife's comments very calmly, for he himself was not so much alarmed about our national progress to destruction as she was. But yet he had his own opinion on the subject, and thought it was undignified on the part of Mrs. Warrender not to have her daughter married at home. He was only to be the second in importance in point of view of the ceremony itself, having no more to do than to assist a bishop who was of the Cavendish clan: whereas he felt himself quite man enough to have married Chatty out of hand without any assistance at all. However, to assist a bishop in the capacity of the parish clergyman of the bride was a position not without dignity, and he felt that he had, on the whole, little to complain of. He went into his study to speak to the young woman when that little consultation was over. Lizzie was seated, as they always were, upon the edge of one of the chairs. He was surprised to see her, though he could scarcely have said why. "Oh, Lizzie! I am sorry to have kept you waiting: but I had something to do for Mrs. Wilberforce," the rector said. "It doesn't matter, sir. I came to ask your advice, if I may make so bold." "Certainly, certainly, Lizzie--anything that I can do." "It isn't for me, sir, it's for a friend," she said, with the same device which Dick had employed, but in her case with more appropriateness. "I want to ask you, sir, about marriages. Oh, it's very serious, sir, there's nothing to smile about." "I will not smile then, Lizzie. I shall be as serious as you please." "It's just this, sir. When a man has been married and has had his wife run away from him and hasn't seen her nor heard of her for years--for six or seven years--he's free to marry again?" "Do you think so? I should not like to affirm so much as that." "But what I want you to tell me," said Lizzie, running on very quickly and taking no notice of his interruption, "is whether, if it could be proved that he _had_ heard of her though he hadn't seen her, if that would make any difference?"