Here the officiator entered. He was a serious, matter-of-fact-looking man; he put on his spectacles, and scanned them closely; then, giving a sort of grunt, intimating some sort of feeling best understood by himself, he commenced-- "Stop!" cried Tremenhere; "I have forgotten a ring!" Minnie was trembling violently--every thing startled her. He saw this, and, hastily glancing at his finger, said, "In such a cause, this will but sanctify it!" and he drew off the circle of gold. "Minnie," he whispered, "this was my mother's." "Oh, not that!" she cried, shrinking back. "It has been so ill-fated!" "You'd better not delay," suggested the man; "folks travel quickly now-a-days, and I have _buzness_, too." "It will unite us the closer in our triumph over her enemies and ours, my Minnie." She said no more, but a cold thrill passed over her as the ring made her Tremenhere's wife. "Now ye're right," said the man, with a grim smile, which he intended to be jocular; "an' tak' care on her, for she's a sonsy leddy--puir young thing!" "Minnie--my wife--my child--my all!" whispered Miles, drawing her on his heart. "Now we may defy them all, and fate--my own wife!" Even as he spoke, the heart at that moment chilled: another might have felt glad in the romance of their love and flight, Tremenhere choked down a sigh. He would have given all he ever hoped to gain, to be standing with Minnie in church, his licensed wife by friends, relatives, and, above all, the rules of prudence and right. It was not his fault, these stern ideas; circumstances had made him what he was. They are once more in the train, and speeding away from the Border, towards town. Some twenty miles on their way, they stopped at a station where a down train was waiting. Minnie drew hastily back, and turned very pale: "My uncle," she whispered, "there--and Mr. Dalby!" She had many a dark storm to encounter before they met again. CHAPTER XVIII.