“The clergyman. Dempsi’s idea! He thinks our marriage is a matter of hours! It is so like Dempsi, so absurdly, so tragically mad; but he’d hardly been with me two minutes before he told me he was sending for the parson to ‘make us one’! And I know which one! I read the review of a book to-day by a man whose name I forget. It doesn’t matter. He says that there are conditions in which assassination is the purest and noblest expression of public sentiment. Will you get it for me?” “But he couldn’t marry you in the evening,” persisted Bobbie. “It is against the law.” She was darkly amused. “Against the law! What is a little thing like that to Dempsi? He is the law!” “It seems a simple matter to get him away.” Bobbie searched his mind for a solution. “Have you any plan?” Had she any plan? Was there a moment of consciousness in the day that she did not form a new scheme to rid herself of her electric incubus? “I’ve a hundred, and they’re all futile and foolish. I thought of running away. That seems about the only sane idea I have had.” “Running away? To where?” he asked. “To Scotland. To join Gordon.” Bobbie jumped up, a very perturbed young man. “You mustn’t do that!” he cried. “Whatever you do, don’t do that, Diana! In the first place, none of us knows where he is; in the second place--well ... I shouldn’t do it.” Her eyebrows rose. “Why not? I could tell Gordon the whole truth, and I’m sure he would be nice and sympathetic. I feel very sure of Gordon in a great crisis like this--it is a very dear feeling to have.” She smiled a little pathetically. “Suppose Dempsi followed you--and he certainly would,” urged Bobbie. “Suppose he found that you’d deceived him, and came upon you on the moors with Gordon?” The smile deepened; into her eyes came a faraway look. “That’s an idea. Gordon would have his gun on the moors,” she said. “Hush! Here he comes.” Bobbie had agreed readily to stay the night, for the great Superbus was tired, being human, as he explained, and having only one pair of eyes that needed rest. There was a slight scene at dinner (Heloise cooked this, and Diana’s respect for her increased). Dempsi, in his most extravagant mood, called for wine. He wanted wine, red wine--to drink the health of his bride. He demanded that it be red and rosy. That it bubbled with the laughter of sunny vineyards. That its hue be as of the warm, rich blood of youth, palpitating, pulsing, seething with love. This he said in so many words. Bobbie said something terse and offensive, and offered him a whisky and soda. Mr. Dempsi looked black, and Diana hastily intervened. But she might as well have attempted to stay the tide of time. Dempsi made a remarkably quick recovery; spoke tremulously of his happiness; kissed Diana’s hand; gave her for the third time the history of his life.