"Stop!" he said, drawing back his hand. Then in a moment, "Is any of it true, this wicked jest at a sacred thing? Was that all so?" "Yes." By this time the scene had become very different from the programme so carefully arranged. The bride and groom had indeed gone across the room and were standing before the minister. But the latter, so far from having made any preparations to begin the ceremony, stood with his eyes on the paper, his face more and more pale and perplexed. "What is it?" cried Master Archdale, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, what does it all mean?" asked the Colonel, advancing toward the minister, and showing his irritation by his frown, his flush, and the abruptness of his speech usually so suave. "I hardly know myself," returned Shurtleff looking from one to the other. "Let us have the ceremony at once, then," said Master Archdale authoritatively. "Why should we delay?" "I cannot, until I have looked into this," answered the minister in a respectful tone. "Nonsense," cried the Colonel with an authority that few contested. "Proceed at once." "I cannot," repeated the minister, and his quiet voice had in it the firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible. "What is all this?" demanded Stephen, holding Katie's arm still more firmly in his own and facing Mr. Shurtleff with eyes of indignant protest. As he received no immediate answer, he turned to Elizabeth. "Mistress Royal," he said, "can you explain this unseemly interruption?" Then all the company, who for the moment had forgotten her share in the transaction, turned their eyes upon her again. "That wicked jest that we had all forgotten," she said, looking at him an instant with a wildness of pain in her eyes. Then she turned to Katie's fair, pale face full of wonder and distress at the unguessed obstacle, and with a smothered cry dropped her face in her hands, and stood motionless and unheeded in the greater excitement. For now Mr. Shurtleff had begun to speak. "You ask me," he said, "why I do not perform the ceremony and marry these two young people whose hearts love has united. I do not dare to do it until I understand the meaning of this strange paper I hold in my hand. What do you remember," he said to Stephen, "of a singular game of a wedding ceremony played one evening last summer?" The young man looked uncomprehending for a moment, then drew his breath sharply. "That?" he said, "Why, that was only to give an example of something we were talking about; that was nothing. Mistress,"--he stopped and glanced at Elizabeth who, leaning forward, was hanging upon every word of his denial as if it were music--"Mistress Royal knows that was so." "Yes," cried Elizabeth, "indeed I do."