The crowd gave a feeble cheer. Matt looked round and smiled, but mingled with her smile there was a kind of vague anxiety and expectation. It was arranged that Monk should drive Matt in the dog-cart, while William Jones and his father followed in the commoner vehicle. At Pencroes, where the ceremony was to be performed, they were to meet with one Mr. Penarvon, a country squire and kindred spirit of Monk’s, who had promised to be “best man.” Monk took the reins, while Matt got in and seated herself beside him, the groom getting up behind; and away they went along the sand-choked road, followed by Jones and his father. The day was bright and merry, but Matt never thought of the old proverb, “Happy is the bride that the sun shines on;” she was too busy examining the prospect on every side of her. All at once, as the bridal procession wound round the edge of the lonely lake, she uttered a cry of delight. There, standing in its old place by the lake-side, was the caravan. Monk looked pale--there was something ghostly in the re-appearance even of this inanimate object. He was a man of strong nerve, however, and he speedily smiled at his own fears. As they approached the spot they saw Tim standing near the vehicle in conversation with two strange gentlemen, one a little elderly man in black broadcloth, the other a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, wearing a light overcoat and a wideawake hat. Directly the procession approached, this group separated, and its three members walked severally into the road, he with the wideawake hat standing right in the centre of the road quietly smoking a cigar. As the dog-cart came up he held up his hand. Unable to proceed without running him down, Monk pulled up angrily. “What is it? Why do you block the road?” he cried fiercely, “Excuse me, governor,” returned the other coolly. “Mr. Monk of Monkhurst, I believe?” “That’s my name.” “Sorry to trouble you on such a day, but I should like a few words with you.” “I cannot stay--I am going to be married!” “So I heard,” said the man, lifting his hat and bowing with a grin to Matt. “Glad to see you, miss. How do you do? But the fact is, Mr. Monk, my business won’t keep. Be good enough to step this way.” Full of some unaccountable foreboding, inspired partly by the stranger’s suave, yet determined, manner, partly by the reappearance of the caravan, Monk alighted, and followed the other across the grass to the close vicinity of the house on wheels. The little elderly man followed, and the man who had first spoken went through the ceremony of introduction. “This is Mr. Monk, sir. Mr. Monk, this gentleman is Mr. Lightwood, of the firm of Lightwood and Lightwood, solicitors, Chester.” “And you--who the devil are _you?_” demanded Monk with his old savagery. “My name is Marshall, Christian name, John, though my friends call me Jack,” answered the other with airy impudence. “John Marshall, governor, of the detective force.”