“As you will,” responded the pastor.  Turning to the old sexton, he said, quietly:  “Will you step over to the church, Adam, brush the snow from the steps and light the lamps about the altar?”

Adam hastened to carry out his commands.  He had scarcely completed his task when the bridal party entered, preceded by the pastor.

Adam watched them curiously as they filed down the aisle, both men still supporting the slender figure quite until the altar was reached.

The Rev. Dr. Warner, shivering with the severe cold of the place, picked up his book quickly.

“Which is the bridegroom?” he asked, looking from one muffled figure to the other.  The man toward the left of the girl dropped back a pace or two, silently waving his hand toward his friend.

The old minister had never heard the names of the contracting parties before, and the idle thought for an instant found lodgment in his mind whether or no they could be fictitious.  Then he blamed himself roundly for his momentary suspicion, and went on hurriedly with the ceremony.

The man answered in a low, guarded voice.  There was a tone in it which somehow jarred on the good minister’s sensitive nerves.  The girl’s voice was pitifully fluttering, almost hysterical.

But that was not an uncommon occurrence.  Few brides are calm and self-possessed.

“You will please lift your veil for the final benediction,” said the aged pastor, pausing, book in hand, and gazing at the slim, silent, dark-robed figure, who had made her responses faintly, gaspingly, almost inaudibly.  Again it was the stranger to the left who complied with his request, but for one instant both the clergyman and the old sexton caught sight of a face white as death, yet beautiful as an angel’s, framed in a mass of dead-gold hair; but the flickering of the lamps caused strange shadows to flit over it.  There was a moment of utter silence, broken only by the howling of the wind outside.

Then slowly the minister’s voice broke the terrible silence by uttering the words:  “Then I pronounce you man and wife, and whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

As the last word echoed through the dim old church the cold steel of a revolver, which had been pressed steadily to the girl’s throbbing heart by the hand of the bridegroom, concealed by her long cloak, was quickly withdrawn.

“My wedded wife!” murmured the man, and in his voice there was a tone of mocking triumph.  The girl swooned in his arms, but, turning quickly with her, he hurried forward into the dense shadows of the church, carrying her to the coach in waiting without attracting attention.

He could scarcely restrain himself from shouting aloud, so exuberant were his spirits.

“Rave.  Do whatever you like.  You cannot change matters now.  I am your husband, ay, the husband of a girl worth a million of money.  When we are out of hearing of the old parson I will give three rousing cheers to celebrate the occasion and give vent to my triumph—­ay, three cheers and a tiger with a will and a vengeance.”