“‘Enough!’ I cried, sternly. ‘Do not dare to interfere with me; you can quietly retire and leave things to take their course; or, since I now recognize you as one of the strangers visiting Rye for the summer, I will cause you to be arrested on the morrow for sacrilege, and having tampered with things belonging to the house of God. Hark!’ I added, as we heard steps entering the chapel; ‘they have come; choose quickly and go; or, if you fear to do that, acknowledge, in the presence of yonder couple, the fraud you were about to commit. I will not have so foul a wrong perpetrated; if a young and trusting maiden believes she is about to become a lawful wife, a wife she _shall_ be; I will not allow her to be deceived.’ “A moment longer he hesitated, as if undecided which course to pursue, then, with a terrible imprecation upon me and the whole proceeding, he turned away and glided forth into the darkness, and I saw him no more. “It was but the work of an instant for me to don the robe and surplice which he had dropped in his fright, and I was at the altar in time to receive the strange couple, one of whom I was now convinced was a designing villain, the other his victim. “The maiden was apparently very young, and my heart was pained for her; her voice was sweet and childish as she made the responses, and I felt in my soul that she must be motherless, or she would not be there in any such way as that. “The propriety of my adopting the course I did might be questioned by some, and the thought arise why I did not instead denounce the villain and save the child. I had reasoned all that within myself, and was convinced that if she was so infatuated with her lover that he had won her consent to a secret marriage, it would not be difficult for him to win her again to his will, and, even in the face of my revelation, to do her the foul wrong he had planned. I judged that the greatest kindness I could do her would be to make her really a wife. “In less than ten minutes the vows which made them one were pronounced, and they were as truly man and wife as any who ever took upon themselves the vows of matrimony; and, putting the certificate of the transaction in the young bride’s hand, I saw them go forth into their new life, feeling that whatever happened, I had done what I could. “I did not believe that with that certificate in her possession, whereon my name was written in my boldest hand, to prove the transaction, that any very great harm could come to that child-wife. I returned to the robing-room, removed my vestures, picked up the wig and beard which still lay there, and brought them home with me as trophies of a strange adventure. They are locked within the third drawer of the old Grafton bureau. God bless and spare that innocent maiden; my heart yearneth over her.”