To the bewildered minister they explained all in a few words--the dastardly scheme the dead man and the woman who had just left the edifice had planned and almost executed, to rob the gentleman who stood, pale and anxiously bending over Jess, of name, wife and fortune; how his tried and true two friends had learned, through the young widow’s maid, of the marriage which was about to take place at that hour between her mistress’ pretty, young guest and the young man whom they had met emerging from the house on a former visit, and that his name was John Dinsmore. Of how fate played into their hands, when they began their search for him, by meeting in the restaurant, after which they had not lost sight of him for a moment. And, furthermore, that his death brought to an untimely end the business of the officers of the law, who had trailed him down by the triangular diamond ring he wore; and who were there to arrest him for a murder done at Saratoga some months before, and for which he would have had to pay the penalty with his life, for his guilt was assured. Ere Jess returned to consciousness, John Dinsmore had her conveyed to a nearby hotel, and here she found herself when her thoughts became clear and her dark eyes opened to life again. She almost believed it to be a wild, delusive dream to behold him whom she loved so well--not dead, but kneeling beside her, holding her hands, and calling upon her name by every sweet word in love’s vocabulary. One instant more and she was in his arms, her head pillowed on John Dinsmore’s sturdy breast. That was their joyful reunion; and clasped thus, heart to heart, mutual explanations followed. And to Jess, the most amazing of them all was that fate had had her own way, in spite of her willfulness, in wedding her to John Dinsmore, the co-heir of Blackheath Hall, after all. Her husband would not allow her to talk of that scene at the church. All he would say was: “Raymond Challoner--that was his real name--is dead; you must forget that you ever knew him, and you must also forget that false friend, Queenie, who would have lured you to a fate worse than death if I had not come in the nick of time to frustrate her designs. She kept from me the knowledge that Raymond Challoner was attempting to palm himself off for me and gain the Dinsmore fortune by marrying you.” He was even more amazed at her crafty villainy when Jess whispered to him that she had made a confidant of Queenie, telling her of her former marriage, and how Queenie had informed her of her husband’s death through an accident, which she was too ignorant of the world’s ways to inquire into. “Let us think of the arch plotters no more, my darling!” declared John Dinsmore, fondly clasping his beautiful, little bride the more closely in his arms, and covering her lovely, blushing, dimpled face with passionate kisses, while her white arms clung more tightly around his neck.