Greatly bewildered, and with trembling hands, Alice unfolded the enclosure, and gazed at it for some time before she exactly understood what she was looking at. Copy of Certificate of Marriage, All Saints’ Church, Cheetapore. Reginald Mostyn Fairfax, Bachelor--Fanny Cole, Spinster. Hugh Parry, Clerk. Marie Fox and John Fox, Witnesses. White as a sheet, and trembling like a leaf, Alice handed this, along with the letter, to Miss Fane. “What does it mean, Miss Fane?” she asked, almost in a whisper. Miss Fane, having adjusted her pince-nez carefully, took both and read them, and as she read her countenance changed from purple to yellow, from yellow to purple, Alice meanwhile devouring her with her eyes. “I cannot make it out,” she said at last. “It seems to be a perfectly correct copy of a certificate of marriage, does it not, Geoffrey?” Geoffrey stretched out a ready hand for the letter and certificate; but the first glance at the letter had the same appalling effect on him as on the two ladies. After a dead silence, during which the ticking of the clock and falling of the cinders were distinctly audible, he plucked up courage to say: “A hoax, of course.” “How are we to know that?” asked Miss Fane, drawing herself up. “I’ll take it up to London and show it to some first-rate solicitor and ask his opinion; it’s only four hours by rail. Will that do?” pushing back his chair and looking at Alice interrogatively. “Yes, do, my dear Geoff; and go at once,” she cried eagerly; “for though I know it is a ridiculous mistake, still I feel quite odd and frightened. But perhaps,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “we should wait till Reginald comes home the day after to-morrow; he will clear it up. Yes, second thoughts are best; we will wait, thank you, Geoff, all the same.” “No, no, my dear!” said Miss Fane, emphatically, “the sooner the matter is cleared up the better. I must beg you to take my advice on the subject as a person much older and more experienced than either of you. Geoffrey can easily catch the ten-o’clock train. It is now,” looking at the clock, “a quarter-past nine.”