“How do you know? What ground have you for speaking so decidedly?”
“It rests entirely on you—yourself, Colonel Ogilvie.”
“What!” His tone was laden with both anger and surprise. “Do you think I would spread any ill report of my own daughter? Sir, you must——” Once more the Sheriff cut into his speaking:
“You misapprehend me, Colonel Ogilvie. You misapprehend me entirely. Why should I—how could I think such a thing! No! I mean that if you accept the facts as they seem to me to be, no one—not you, nor any one else, can make scandal; if you do not!”
“Explain yourself,” he interrupted. “Nay, do not think me rude”—here he put up a deprecating hand—“but I am so deeply anxious about my daughter’s happiness—her future welfare and happiness,” he added as he remembered how his violent attitude had, only a few minutes ago imperilled—almost destroyed, that happiness. Joy had been, off and on, whispering a word to her aunt so that the latter was now fairly well posted in the late events.
“Quite so! quite so, my dear sir. Most natural thing in the world,” said the Sheriff soothingly. “Usual thing under the circumstances is to kill the man; or want to kill him!” As he spoke he looked at Athlyne meaningly. The other understood and checked the words which were rising to his lips. Then, having tided over the immediate danger of explosion, the Sheriff went on:
“The fact is Colonel Ogilvie, that the series of doings (and perhaps misdoings) and accidents, which have led to our all meeting here and now, has brought about a strange conclusion. So far as I can see”—here his manner grew grave and judicial—“these two young people are at the present moment man and wife. Lawfully married according to Scottish law!”
The reception of this dictum was varied. Colonel Ogilvie almost collapsed in overwhelming amazement. Joy, blushing divinely, looked at her husband adoringly. Athlyne seemed almost transfigured and glorified; the realisation of all his hopes in this sudden and unexpected way showed unmistakably how earnest they had been. Judy, alone of all the party, was able to express herself in conventional fashion. This she did by clapping her hands and, then by kissing the whole party—except the Sheriff who half stood forward as though in hope that some happy chance might include him in the benison. She began with Joy and went on to her brother-in-law, who accepted with a better grace than she feared would have been accorded. When she came to Athlyne she hesitated for a moment, but with a “now-or-never” rush completed the act, and fell back shyly with a belated timorousness.
The Sheriff, having paused for the completion of this little domestic ceremony, went on calmly:
“Since I left you a few minutes ago I have busied myself with making a few necessary inquiries from my old servant Jane McBean, now McPherson. I made them, I assure you Colonel Ogilvie, very discreetly. Even Jane, who is in her way a clever woman, has no suspicion that I was even making inquiry. The result has been to confirm me in my original conjecture, which was to the effect that there has been executed between these two people an ‘irregular’ marriage!” At the mention of the words the Colonel exploded: