Other speeches followed, and it was with difficulty that the professor and his fiancée ultimately managed to reach their carriage and drive away. * * * * * A fortnight later Delapine and Renée, together with Marcel and Violette, were married by civil contract at the Mairie, and then a little later the next day the religious ceremony was performed at the Church of La Trinité. The breakfast took place in the dining-room and séance-room (which were thrown into one for the occasion) at the house of the happy couple's old friend, Dr. Villebois. "Villebois," said Riche at the wedding breakfast, "I owe all my happiness to meeting you at the café at the corner of the Boule 'Miche' last autumn." "And I owe all mine to Payot losing his pile," retorted Marcel. "If he had not 'plunged' he would not have met Beaupaire, and I should not have seen Violette." "And Renée's marriage is all due to that lucky café, for there it was that I met Mdlle. Violette," said Riche. "You?" said Marcel, astonished, as he ceased for a moment admiring his superb silk waistcoat. "Yes, it was there that she told me what she saw in the ring, half an hour after I met Villebois there for the first time. And I fully believe it saved Delapine's life, for it was owing to Violette's clairvoyance of the sealed envelope that I persuaded Dr. Roux to cease performing the autopsy." "Good gracious," said Marcel, "here are three people who go and get married and their wives receive handsome dots all because you happened to sit down and smoke a pipe outside a café. Well! if that doesn't beat the professor's play at the tables I'm a Dutchman." "I wonder whether we have heard the last of Delapine," said Violette. "The last of Delapine!" exclaimed Marcel. "Don't worry, you will hear plenty more yet about him." "Don't you remember he told Renée that when he recovered he intended to dictate his memoirs?" "Yes, I remember, and in his speech at the Sorbonne he said he was going to make history instead of learning it." "By Jove," said Marcel, "you are right. We are going to have some fun ahead to look forward to." "Céleste," said Riche, as he took her little hand in his, "we are nobodies just now. The effulgence of Delapine and Marcel is too dazzling. I think we had better wait a few weeks until everyone is breathing a more sober atmosphere, and then we can have a quiet wedding all to ourselves." And they did. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 22: "Oh, tell me now what meaning has man, Or whence he comes, and whither he goes, Who dwells beyond upon the golden stars?"]