"I tell you, it is true. I have got a fiancee." "My dear fellow, you are mad!" "No, I assure you I am quite sane--I have found a way out of the difficulty--an angel has dropped from the clouds to save me from Violet Hatfield." Henry Fordyce was actually startled. Michael looked as though he were talking seriously. "But where did she come from? What the--Oh! I have no patience with you, you old fool! You are playing some comedy upon me!" "Henry, I give you my word, I'm not--I am going to marry a most presentable young person at nine o'clock on Thursday night in the chapel here--and you are going to stay and be best man." Then his excitement began to rise again, and he got up from his chair and paced up and down restlessly. "It is the very thing. She wants her money and I want my freedom. She gets hers by marriage, and I get mine. I don't care a rush for domestic bliss, it has never appealed to me; and the fellow in Australia who'll come after me has got a boy who will do all right, no doubt, for the old place by and by. I shall have a perfectly free time and no responsibilities--and, thank the Lord! no more women for me for the future. I have done with the snakes. I shall be happy and free for the first time for a whole year!" Mr. Fordyce actually let his cigar go out. This incredible story was beginning to have an effect upon him. "But where did she come from?" he asked blandly, as one speaks to a harmless imbecile. "I leave you here in an abject state of despair, ready almost to decide upon marrying old Bessie, and I return in an hour and you inform me everything is settled, and you are the fiance of another lady! You know, you surprise me, Michael--'Pon my word, you do!" Michael laughed, it was really a huge joke. "Yes, it is quite true. Well, just as I was going to ring and send James for Bessie to talk it over with her, there was no end of a smash--as you see--and a girl--a tourist--fell through the secret door. I haven't opened it for five years. She was running away from a horrid fellow she was engaged to, it seems, and fled into the passage, and the door shut after her and she could not get out, so she pushed on in here." "It adds dramatic color to the story, the girl being engaged to someone else--pray go on." Mr. Fordyce had now picked up his cigar again. This preposterous tale no longer interested him. He thought it even rather bad taste on the part of his friend. "All right!" Michael explained. "You need not believe me if you don't like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff, Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our difficulties. We can easily get the bond annulled later on." Henry Fordyce put down his cigar again.