“It means that your daughter has become _my_ wife instead of marrying Geoffrey Dale, as everybody supposed she was going to do.” Mrs. Huntress sprang up with a faint shriek at this. “No, no!” she cried, “that cannot be.” Then, as she peered closely into his face, and realised the truth of the fearful disclosure, she tottered feebly toward her husband, moaning: “Oh, August! he has practiced a terrible deception upon us, and it will surely kill Gladys.” She was almost as helpless as the unconscious girl herself, and her husband was forced to put her into a rocker that stood near him, simply because he, too, was so weakened and unmanned by what he had heard that he was unable to support her. But a terrible wrath began to rise within him; with it came a false kind of strength, and turning toward the wolf who had thus stolen into his household, he commanded, in a fearful voice: “Young man, explain yourself!” “Willingly, sir; the sooner the truth is out, the better it will suit me,” Everet replied, haughtily. “I have loved your daughter for more than three years. Twice I have offered myself to her, and twice been rejected. When I learned of her engagement to the low-born boy whom you adopted, and whom I have despised and hated from the very first of our acquaintance, I vowed it should never be consummated. I worshiped her, and I resolved that I would win her at any cost. I have done so; she is mine, wedded to me this night, in the presence of yourself and hundreds of others, and I shall assert my claim in spite of you all. I hoped, in the excitement and confusion, and from my close resemblance to Huntress, that I should escape discovery until our departure from New York. If we had not reached the house quite so early—if the guests could have followed close upon us and kept Gladys’ attention from being especially called to me, I think I could have warded off detection until we were well on our way to Boston. She seemed turned to stone when she did recognize me, and realized how she had been duped, and when I attempted to reason with her she swooned.” For a minute after Everet concluded, Mr. Huntress stood like one dazed by some fearful shock, his glance wavering between the still unconscious bride and the man whose victim she had become. “It is a fraud!” he cried at last. “You have practiced a most damnable fraud upon us all; but I hope that you do not imagine for a moment that you can enforce your claim. The courts of New York will promptly annul the marriage.” “Allow me to suggest, sir, that you will first have to prove your point regarding fraud,” Everet retorted, with quiet defiance. “Miss Huntress has been heard to affirm that she could distinguish between Geoffrey Dale and myself without any difficulty, and yet she went to the altar with me and pledged herself to me without a demur.” Mr. Huntress groaned. “Was that strange clergyman a tool of yours?” he demanded, excitedly. “Was that all a clever device of yours also?”