All the same the porter and the brakemen were sure she had flung herself from number nine--most likely when they were crossing "the bridge." The brakeman offered confidentially to show any man for five dollars how it could be done. Old Bryan was sure Mrs. Goole had slept on her post. Mrs. Goole was sure old Bryan had slept on his. Baltasar de Alcantara was mad with rage, and the bridemaids were faint with hunger. Miss Kuh gave him the ring and handkerchief, and he flung both out of the open window. The groomsmen stole forward into the kitchen and ate cold chops and flattened omelets. Some cold coffee was smuggled back to the bridemaids. And so the express-train arrived at St. Louis, and the loafers at the station watched the arrival of the "special bridal-car," and no bride emerged therefrom! only some very sick bridemaids, some very cross groomsmen, a disgusted bridegroom, an angry father and a frightened aunt, and the gigantic Saratoga trunk. "Where to?" asked the porters, who staggered under the trunk. "Nowhere," answered De Alcantara, with a useless oath. "Leave it in your baggage-room till it is called for." And he went his way. CHAPTER III. CAUGHT AND TOLD. Yet there was a wedding after all! The sexton and organist at St. Jude's had not been summoned for nothing, nor the parsons. It was not in vain that Ax, Kidder, & Co. had spread a whole piece of Brussels carpet across the wide pavement of Eleventh Street, from the curb-stone up the church-steps into the very porch. For, as Baltasar de Alcantara left the Central Station, just as he was stepping into the elegant coupé which awaited him, a wild, foreign-looking woman, with a little child in her arms, sprang across his way. "Take your baby to your wedding," the wild creature cried, crazy with excitement. Baltasar de Alcantara stopped a full minute without speech, looking at her. Then he laughed grimly. "Hold your jaw," he said. "You're just in time. You'll do. Stop your howling. Go dress yourself decently in a travelling dress, and be at the church at twelve,--not one minute late nor one minute early,--and, mind, a thick veil. Moses, go with her, and see that she is there." And so he entered his coupé and rode to his hotel. And at noon his party passed up his aisle, and this Bohemian woman, led by Moses Gardner, walked up the other aisle. There was the least hitch in the service, as De Alcantara bade the minister substitute the name of Faris for Hester. But of the company assembled, not ten people knew that it was not the Ohio beauty who passed on De Alcantara's arm from the chancel to the vestry. In the vestry, however, there was a different scene. Baltasar, black with rage, was still trying to be civil to the minister's clerk, whom he found there with a book, waiting for the bridegroom's signature. As he took the pen, from the side-door another gentleman entered, and, without giving the bridegroom time to write, said to him, "You will please come with me, sir."