“Your interference is not required here, reverend sir. Your ministry is completed. The marriage ceremony is finished. I hold my wife on my arm.”
“Then this is a Mormon settlement, and a man can marry as many wives as he pleases, eh, gentlemen?” inquired the strange woman, looking around.
“Good friends! Pray let us pass!” the colonel expostulated, trying to elbow his way through the excited crowd that filled up the aisle, and seemed to wait with suspended breath the issue of the scene.
Two voices answered at once:
“No, sir. I think not. Mr. Force has asked for his daughter until this matter can be investigated,” said Thomas Grandiere.
“Will you release the lady, at her father’s demand, and save us the discredit of using violence in this sacred place?” inquired William Elk.
“Oh, my Lord, there’ll be a fight!” exclaimed a voice from the crowd.
“Will some one be kind enough to take this mad woman in custody?” exclaimed Anglesea, beside himself with fear, shame and wrath.
“In custody, is it? If anybody is taken in custody, it is that man there! Yes, it is you I am talking about! It’s you, for bigamy! I wish I had got a warrant out and fetched a couple of bailiffs to do it, too! Why don’t you let this girl go? You might’s well do it first as last. You’ll have to do it, you know!” said the woman.
“Will you give me my daughter, Col. Anglesea?” quietly questioned Abel Force.