‘I knew you were not married at home,’ said Mr. Plowden, rising up and placing himself in front of the fireplace. ‘I knew there was something queer about it. In the name of wonder, Emily, why, if my father went with you, didn’t he have you married at home? He can’t, in that case, have disapproved.’ ‘I don’t think he disapproved.’ ‘Then why, _why_ weren’t you married at home? My father went with you, and you don’t know? What a very queer business! And who went with you beside my father?’ ‘Old Meredith, do you remember, who used to be my nurse--and a lady. But Meredith is dead, and papa is dead--and the other----’ ‘This grows rather funny,’ said the Rector. ‘I mean it isn’t funny at all. So there is nobody living who was there, and you don’t know where it was? Does your friend, Mrs. Swinford, know these circumstances, Emily, and does she want to frighten you? It would be like her amiable temper.’ ‘James, tell me, is there any real reason to fear?’ ‘Oh, dear, no. Of course not; the only thing is to find the place. Of course, it must be on the register. What a queer thing not to know the church you were married in! I thought a woman always remembered that, whatever she forgot.’ ‘I was a frightened girl,’ said Lady William. ‘I didn’t know what they were going to do with me. I was sent down from the Hall at midnight, as I thought in disgrace--though I could not tell for what. There was a great tumult in the house. Mr. Swinford, who was so quiet, in the midst of it all; and then my husband came down here with me, and my father was called up to speak to him and then it was all like a flash of lightning. I was taken up to London two days after, and there I was married. It was a little old church, in a district which I didn’t know.’ ‘How is it I never heard anything of this before?’ ‘How can I tell?’ she said. ‘I was taken away, frightened, not knowing what had happened. Oh, I suppose that I was not unwilling: I did not understand it: but my father was there--and he liked it, James. He said it was a great match for me, and, though it was so hurried, I was not to mind. After, I understood better--but at the time not at all.’ ‘It must have been by special license,’ said the Rector; ‘but why in the name of wonder didn’t my father have it here?--Why---- But I suppose it’s no use saying why and why. There must have been reasons----’ He looked at his sister fixedly, yet avoiding her eye. But Lady William neither met nor avoided his look. She sat before him, pale, with an air of deep and melancholy recollection. ‘Oh, there were reasons,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘It was years before I found them out. I would rather not enter into them even now--reasons which for a time made life odious to me. It had not been very happy before. Don’t let us speak of that.’ ‘They were reasons--which Mrs. Swinford knew!’