The little timid hand, so slender and white, came a shade nearer as if to help, and the ring finger separated itself from the others. He looked at the smooth circlet. It seemed too tiny for any woman’s finger. Then, reverently, he slipped it on, with a strange, inexpressible longing to touch the little hand. While he was thinking himself all kinds of a fool, and was enjoying one of his intermittent visions of Julia Bentley’s expressive countenance interpolated on the present scene, a strange thing happened. There had been some low murmurs and motions which he had not noticed because he thought his part of this very uncomfortable affair was about concluded, when, lo and behold, the minister and the young man by his side both began fumbling for his hand, and among them they managed to bring it into position and place in its astonished grasp the little timid hand that he had just crowned with its ring. As his fingers closed over the bride’s hand, there was such reverence, such tenderness in his touch that the girl’s eyes were raised once more to his face, this time with the conquered tears in retreat, but all the pain and appeal still there. He looked and involuntarily he pressed her hand the closer, as if to promise aforetime whatever she would ask. Then, with her hand in his, and with the realization that they two were detached as it were from the rest of the wedding party, standing in a little centre of their own, his senses came back to him, and he perceived as in a flash of understanding that it was _they_ who were being married! There had been some terrible, unexplainable mistake, and he was stupidly standing in another man’s place, taking life vows upon himself! The thing had passed from an adventure of little moment into a matter of a life-tragedy, two life-tragedies perhaps! What should he do? With the question came the words, “I pronounce you husband and wife,” and “let no man put asunder.” CHAPTER IV What had he done? Was it some great unnamed, unheard-of crime he had unconsciously committed? Could anyone understand or excuse such asinine stupidity? Could he ever hold up his head again, though he fled to the most distant part of the globe? Was there nothing that could save the situation? Now, before they left the church, could he not declare the truth, and set things right, undo the words that had been spoken in the presence of all these witnesses, and send out to find the real bridegroom? Surely neither law nor gospel could endorse a bond made in the ignorance of either participant. It would, of course, be a terrible thing for the bride, but better now than later. Besides, he was pledged by that hand-clasp to answer the appeal in her eyes and protect her. This, then, was what it had meant! But his commission! What of that? “A matter of life and death!” Ah! but this was _more_ than life or death!