Here was a dying girl whose passage to the grave would be rendered brighter by my marrying her; who would die in a few days, or weeks at most, and know no difference. Nobody need be aware of this strange midnight adventure, or the manner in which I had been bought. I hesitated. “I give you my word that none know of her insanity except myself, and that she is upon her death-bed,” said my tempter. Still I paused. I was wondering what could be the Earl’s ulterior motive. Besides, I had no desire to enter the ranks of Benedicts. “Come, decide. I have a clergyman ready and a licence. Some one shall make my darling’s last moments happy. Is not the money enough? Well, here’s another thousand. Will you accept it?” I summoned courage, and drawing a long breath, stretched forth my hand and grasped the notes, which I thrust hastily into my pocket. I had sold myself. I had offered myself as a sacrifice to Mammon, as others had done. My purchaser opened the door, and called softly, “It’s all right.” “Is it?” asked the clergyman who entered. “You are, I understand, the affianced husband of Lady Muriel?” he asked, addressing me. “Yes,” I replied. Was it not true? Had I not three thousand pounds in my pocket as evidence of the fact? “Come,” said the old man impatiently, as he led the way upstairs to a large bedroom on the first floor, where the light was so dim that I could hardly more than distinguish the shape of the bed and the form of some one closely covered up in it. The footman, who had accosted me in the street, entered behind us, and we took our places at the bedside. Gradually, as my eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness, I could see that my future wife was lying upon her side, and with her face turned from me. “Take her hand,” commanded the man to whom I had sold myself. I obeyed. “Proceed with the ceremony.” The clergyman droned off the service by heart with the characteristic nasal intonation. Probably I faltered a little at the responses, but my dying bride never hesitated. Though her voice was low as distant music, her every word was prompt and clear. I gave the _alias_ I frequently used, Vladimir Mordvinoff, and when I uttered the name I fancied that she started. “_Mojnoli?_” she gasped in a strange half-whisper, but she did not turn to look at me. It was evident, however, that she spoke Russian. The ceremony concluded, we were pronounced man and wife; I was the husband of a girl who was insane, and whose face I had never looked upon! Was ever there a stranger marriage? The thin wasted fingers that lay in my grasp were cold. A strange sense of guilt crept over me when I remembered that I had bound myself irrevocably to her, deceiving her during her last moments upon earth. “Come,” exclaimed his lordship. “Let us go downstairs and sign the necessary documents.”