“There is a colour to part of it,” said he, diffidently.
“And what part?”
“The part which refers to the marriage here.”
“What do you mean, Sir?”
“When you lay on that bed yonder, with fixed eyes, motionless, unconscious, and, as all believed, dying, a priest muttered some words over you, and placed your hand in that of this young man I spoke of. The woman of the house saw this through the keyhole of the door; she saw a ring produced, too, but it fell to the ground, and the priest laughingly said, ‘It’s just as good without the ring;’ and, after they had gone, the woman picked it up beneath the bed, and has it now. She saw them, besides, when they came down stairs, sit down at a table and draw up a paper, to which the priest ordered her to be a witness by a mark, as she cannot write; and this paper she believes to have had some reference to the scene she saw above. All this I believe, for she who told it to me is truthful and honest.”
Kate passed her hand across her forehead like one trying to clear her faculties for better reflection, and then said: “But this is no marriage!”
“Certainly not; nor could it have been had recourse to to quiet scruples of yours, since you were unconscious of all that went on.”
“And with what object, then, was it done?”
This was what he could not answer, and he sat silent and thoughtful; at last he said: “Were you not at this Castle in Wales I spoke of?”
“Yes.”