Again the feeling of dread completely over-powered her.  She looked at him with her great sorrowful eyes, as a trapped animal will sometimes look at its captor, but she could not speak.  Some terrible blight seemed to have overgrown her brain, depriving her of speech and willpower.

The witnesses entered.  Anna was too agitated to notice that the Rev. John Langdon’s housekeeper was a very singular looking young woman for her position.  Her hair was conspicuously dark at the roots and conspicuously light on the ends.  Her face was hard and when she smiled her mouth, assumed a wolfish expression.  She was loudly dressed and wore a profusion of jewelry—­altogether a most remarkable looking woman for the place she occupied.

The gardener had the appearance of having been suddenly wakened before nature had had her full quota of sleep.  He was blear-eyed and his breath was more redolent of liquor than one might have expected in the gardener of a parsonage.

The room in which the ceremony was to take place was the ordinary cottage parlor, with crochet work on the chairs, and a profusion of vases and bric-a-brac on the tables.  The Rev. John Langdon requested Anna and Sanderson to stand by a little marble table from which the housekeeper brushed a profusion of knick-knacks.  There was no Bible.  Anna was the first to notice the omission.  This seemed to deprive the young clergyman of his dignity.  He looked confused, blushed, and turning to the housekeeper told her to fetch the Bible.  This seemed to appeal to the housekeeper’s sense of humor.  She burst out laughing and said something about looking for a needle in a haystack.  Sanderson turned on her furiously, and she left the room, looking sour, and muttering indignantly.  She returned, after what seemed an interminable space of time, and the ceremony proceeded.

Anna did not recognize her own voice as she answered the responses.  Sanderson’s was clear and ringing; his tones never faltered.  When the time came to put the ring on her finger, Anna’s hand trembled so violently that the ring fell to the floor and rolled away.  Sanderson’s face turned pale.  It seemed to him like a providential dispensation.  For some minutes, the assembled company joined in the hunt for the ring.  It was found at length by the yellow-haired housekeeper, who returned it with her most wolfish grin.

“Trust Bertha Harris to find things!” said the clergyman.

The ceremony proceeded without further incident.  The final words were pronounced and Anna sank into a chair, relieved that it was over, whether it was for better or for worse.

Sanderson hurried her into the carriage before the clergyman and the witnesses could offer their congratulations.  He pulled her away from the yellow-haired housekeeper, who would have smothered her in an embrace, and they departed without the customary handshake from the officiating clergyman.