"Violet, I never saw you looking so pretty as you do to-night," Walter whispered to her, and it was true. A slight air of restless and anxious expectancy lent color to her cheeks and fire to her eyes. Walter himself looked handsome, but very pale and grave. He had not conquered his own heart yet, and he walked over a path of thorns when he accompanied his friend to the altar. It was a strange sight to see this brother and sister acting as bridesmaid and groomsman to this pair. Walter was in love with the bride, Violet with the groom. Yet they had been chosen for this office and accepted it calmly as they were now fulfilling it. They walked to the front of the altar and stepped apart. Ronald Valchester, tall, handsome and stately, passed between them with his bride upon his arm, and stood expectantly before the clergyman. Those who stood around said that there never had been a finer-looking bridegroom or a lovelier bride. Valchester's calm, grave face was very pale, but it was touched with a beautiful, tender seriousness that impressed all who saw it with his deep consciousness of the sanctity of the moment. The beautiful face of the girl-bride, as seen through the mist of the splendid Brussels veil, glowed with shy blushes, and the thick, curling fringe of her black lashes drooped low upon her softly-rounded cheek. A moment--the rustle and whisper in the congregation suddenly grew still. The clergyman began to read the solemnly beautiful words of the marriage service. Everyone was looking at the bride. No one noticed that Violet Earle, as she stood at the left of the bride, looked behind her with an anxious, fugitive, eager gaze. But the next moment all was darkness and confusion. A man sprang up with the swiftness of lightning, and with a daring hand extinguished the pretty chandelier that lighted the chapel. Cries of alarm and indignation arose. In an instant all was hurry, noise and confusion. In the instant that the light was extinguished, Jaquelina heard a low cry of pain from her lover's lips, felt him falling to the floor in the darkness. Then she was caught in a pair of strong arms and borne rapidly from the chapel. Struggling and screaming, she was lifted to the back of a horse and borne fleetly away in the arms of her captor. In the hour that was the happiest of her life, Gerald Huntington had taken his terrible revenge. "They're away, they're away, over bank, bush and scaur, 'They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young Lochinvar." CHAPTER XX. Gradually the first frantic struggle of Jaquelina relaxed in violence. The grief and horror of her situation overcame her nerves. She fainted, and hung limp and nerveless in the strong arms of the outlaw. "It is better thus," said Gerald Huntington, grimly. "Her struggles sadly impeded my flight. Now I will put my horse to its highest speed."