"Mr. Kenmore, oh, Mr. Kenmore," panted the sharp, shrill, frightened young voice, "do you know what they are saying in yonder?--what Mr. Clavering is saying? That--that--he is a _real minister_, and that it was a _real marriage_! It isn't true! Oh, my God, it can't be! Go, and make them say it is all a wretched joke to frighten me!" There was a moment's stunned silence broken only by a scream of dismay from Bertha. Irene was gazing with a blanched face, and wild, beseeching eyes, up into the handsome, startled face of the man. Suddenly he pushed the white hands from his arm, broke loose from Bertha's clasp, and strode hastily through the window. Irene fell upon the floor, all her childishness stricken from her by this terrible blow, and grovelled in abject terror. Haughty Bertha spurned the little white figure with her dainty slippered foot. "Get up," she said, harshly. "Get up, Irene, and tell me the truth! Is it true what you were saying, or only one of your miserable jokes?" Irene dragged herself up miserably from the floor, and clung to the balcony rail around which clambered a white rose vine. The snowy, scented roses were not whiter than her haggard young face. "Oh, Bertha--Bertha, it is true," she said, despairingly. "That stupid Clavering didn't know we were joking. He is a minister--really a minister--but no one in the room knew it, because he is a stranger about here, you know, and staying at the hotel for his health. Oh, Bertha--Bertha, what shall I do? I don't like Mr. Kenmore! I don't want to be his wife!" Bertha shook from head to foot with jealous rage. "Listen to me, Irene Brooke," she said, in a hoarse, low voice of concentrated fury. "If this is true, if you really are Guy Kenmore's wife, I am your bitterest foe as long as you live! I'll make you repent this night's work in dust and ashes to your dying day!" As the cruel words left her writhing lips, Mr. Kenmore came out, followed by Mrs. Brooke and her eldest daughter. Irene's wild eyes searched the man's face imploringly, "Yes, it is true," he said to her abruptly, almost harshly. "The man is an ordained minister, licensed to marry. You are really my wife!" A piercing shriek, full of the sharpest anguish, followed on the last cold word. Irene threw up her white arms wildly in the air and fell like one dead at the bridegroom's feet. CHAPTER V. When Irene Brooke recovered her senses she was lying on a sofa in the old familiar home-parlor which she had quitted such a little while ago a careless, happy, willful child. The soft locks that hung about her forehead were all wet and dabbled with _eau de cologne_, and Elaine bent over her with the face of a pitying angel, bathing her cheeks and temples with the refreshing perfume. The clock in the hall chimed the midnight hour, and lifting her head, that felt strangely dull and heavy, she gazed wonderingly around her.