"Then as soon as we can get the license and I can arrange certain matters," he said quite composedly, despite the accelerated beat of his pulse. "We will drive first to the City Clerk's office. There is some red tape about the matter, I believe. Then I will take you to a hotel where you may lunch. I shall need several hours for business before the banks close. Then we can go at once to a minister of whom I know." "Oh! can it be done so quickly?" and she caught her breath, though with a little laugh. "Don't be frightened," he said tenderly. "It will be all right. Where are your trunks?" "On their way to the Pennsylvania Railway station, I believe." "So soon? Were you getting ready to run away from me?" he asked in some little surprise. "No-o." Then she laughed and tossed her head with that gesture that had become familiar to him--which he had noticed so many times aboard ship. "I was getting ready to run away with you," she whispered. He laughed, tucked her hand under his arm, and they walked up the dock. Near the gate he saw Marks standing. Miss Mont did not chance to look his way, but Ryder saw that the theatrical man observed him and smiled sardonically as they passed. "Confound his impudence!" muttered Ryder. Then he glanced at the woman at his side. She was certainly beautiful, with plenty of warm, rich color in her cheeks, the blackest of level brows, the very whitest of skin. "By heaven! she's a treasure," thought Ryder, as he hailed a taxicab. "And I'm a lucky fellow to get her. To think that, in a few short hours, she will be Mrs. John Ryder!" A foolish little mist obscured his vision, and he stumbled on the step as he followed her into the cab. She laughed. "You won't get married this year if you stumble upstairs," she said. CHAPTER II "NEEDLES AND PINS" None of his business associates, not even his head clerk, knew just when John Ryder would return to New York. He had gone across for a rest--a pleasure trip; but he had struck some splendid contracts--"the woods were full of them," he said--and he cabled orders until his agents in America fairly begged him to stop. Prices for raw material had not yet risen to top-notch, and they were skimming the cream of the manufacturing situation. He arrived on the _Minnequago_ with none aware of his coming. Nor did he propose to tell anybody of the change he now contemplated to make in his private life. Had he done so, he knew that certain "good fellows" of his acquaintance would undertake to make existence an agony for him and for this beautiful girl whom he was to marry. It seems to be the delight of a certain order of mankind to make the sweetest, most intimate hours of a newly-married couple a Saturnalia upon which they can only look back with horror.