The old parson lifted two astonished eyes, and gazed at Mr. Bonnithorne over the rims of his spectacles. The lawyer's uneasiness increased. Then Parson Christian remembered that only a little while ago Mr. Bonnithorne had offered reasons why Paul should not marry Greta. They were rather too secular, those same reasons, but no doubt they had appealed honestly to his mind as a friend of Greta's family. "Paul and Greta are going away," said the parson. "So I judged." "They go to Victoria to farm there," continued the parson. "On Greta's money," added the lawyer. Parson Christian looked again over the rims of his spectacles. Then for once his frank and mellow face annexed a reflection of the curl on the lawyer's lip. "Do you know," he said, "it never once came into my simple old pate to ask which would find the dross and which the honest labor?" Mr. Bonnithorne winced. The simple old pate could, on occasion, be more than a match for his own wise head. "Seeing that I shall marry her, I think it will be expected that you should give her to her husband; but if you have an objection--" "An objection?" Mr. Bonnithorne interrupted. "I don't know that my feeling is so serious as that." "Then let us leave it there, and you'll decide in the morning," said Parson Christian. So they left it there, and Mr. Bonnithorne, the dear friend of the family, made haste to the telegraph office and sent this telegram to Hugh Ritson in London: "They are to be married to-morrow. If you have anything imperative to say, write to-night, or come." Paul and Greta saw each other only for five minutes that day amid the general hubbub; but their few words were pregnant with serious issues. Beneath the chorus of their hearts' joy there was an undersong of discord; and neither knew of the other's perplexity. Greta was thinking of Hugh Ritson's mysterious threat. Whether or not Hugh had the power of preventing their marriage was a question of less consequence to Greta at this moment than the other question of whether or not she could tell Paul what Hugh had said. As the day wore on, her uncertainty became feverish. If she spoke, she must reveal--what hitherto she had partly hidden--the importunity and unbrotherly disloyalty of Hugh's love. She must also awaken fresh distress in Paul's mind, already overburdened with grief for the loss of his mother. Probably Paul would be powerless to interpret his brother's strange language. And if he should be puzzled, the more he must be pained. Perhaps Hugh Ritson's threat was nothing but the outburst of a distempered spirit--the noise of a bladder that is emptying itself. Still, Greta's nervousness increased; no reason, no sophistry could allay it. She felt like a blind man who knows by the current of air on his face that he has reached two street crossings, and can not decide which turn to take.