And he went his way.
CHAPTER III.
CAUGHT AND TOLD.
Yet there was a wedding after all! The sexton and organist at St. Jude's had not been summoned for nothing, nor the parsons. It was not in vain that Ax, Kidder, & Co. had spread a whole piece of Brussels carpet across the wide pavement of Eleventh Street, from the curb-stone up the church-steps into the very porch.
For, as Baltasar de Alcantara left the Central Station, just as he was stepping into the elegant coupé which awaited him, a wild, foreign-looking woman, with a little child in her arms, sprang across his way.
"Take your baby to your wedding," the wild creature cried, crazy with excitement.
Baltasar de Alcantara stopped a full minute without speech, looking at her. Then he laughed grimly. "Hold your jaw," he said. "You're just in time. You'll do. Stop your howling. Go dress yourself decently in a travelling dress, and be at the church at twelve,—not one minute late nor one minute early,—and, mind, a thick veil. Moses, go with her, and see that she is there."
And so he entered his coupé and rode to his hotel. And at noon his party passed up his aisle, and this Bohemian woman, led by Moses Gardner, walked up the other aisle. There was the least hitch in the service, as De Alcantara bade the minister substitute the name of Faris for Hester. But of the company assembled, not ten people knew that it was not the Ohio beauty who passed on De Alcantara's arm from the chancel to the vestry.
In the vestry, however, there was a different scene. Baltasar, black with rage, was still trying to be civil to the minister's clerk, whom he found there with a book, waiting for the bridegroom's signature. As he took the pen, from the side-door another gentleman entered, and, without giving the bridegroom time to write, said to him, "You will please come with me, sir."