How happily the days flew. To her and her lover that week between their betrothal and their wedding day stood out forever in memory like a beautiful gem in a golden setting. They were not rich nor famous, but they were young and loving, with the whole world before them, and they asked nothing of fate but each other’s love. So the golden days, love-freighted, slipped away and brought the fateful hour. They were to be married very quietly at the cottage with just a few friends, such as Doctor Bertrand, Doctor Merry, and others from the hospital. After an hour or so of pleasant converse and light refreshments they were to start on a little wedding journey. Doctor St. Clair, who returned on the day before the wedding, was courteously invited to the ceremony by Rupert, who, in ignorance of his hidden vileness, chose to bear him no ill will for discharging Eva. “It has only hastened my wedding day--the happiest hour of my life,” he said, in his blindness. The superintendent accepted the invitation with one of his blandest smiles and a few words of congratulation, ending with: “You seem to be made for each other.” Others thought so, too, when the handsome pair stood before the minister that balmy May evening in the flower-decked room, surrounded by their admiring friends. Doctor Rupert was pale and trembling with exquisite happiness. As the aged minister opened his book to begin the wedding service, the bridegroom, looking down at the sweet white figure by his side, wondered if indeed it could be a reality and no dream that God was going to give him bonnie Eva for his own. As though in answer to his thought, the rude tramp of two uninvited guests sounded loudly in the stillness of the room, and a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, whirling him around to face a grim, stern officer of the law, whose words fell on his ears like the trump of doom: “Doctor Ludington, your identity is known, and I have a warrant here to arrest you for the murder of Terry Groves!” It was like the bursting of a bombshell. The minister dropped his holy book in consternation. The guests exclaimed loudly in amazement all together. And the man most concerned, turning on his interlocutors a face of startled terror, demanded hoarsely: “Your proofs?” The officer of the law answered sternly: “They will be forthcoming at the proper time, and you must come with me now, for Miss Somerville will surely not wish the ceremony to go on, now that she knows your identity as the murderer of her cousin!” The malicious thrust seemed to quiver like a sword point in the accused man’s heart. He started, shuddered, then looked down with burning blue eyes at the white-faced girl clinging to his arm with both trembling white hands, while she cried out to him wildly, beseechingly: “Tell them they are mistaken, that they have accused you falsely! Tell them you never could have won my heart if you had been gran’ther’s enemy!”