"Confound him, he's not here!" growled Windomshire.
"Perhaps we are early," suggested Anne, feebly.
"It's a quarter to nine," he said. "I suppose there is nothing left for us to do but to wait. I'll look around a bit, dear. Perhaps the witnesses are here somewhere."
"Oo-oo-ooh! Don't leave me!" she almost shrieked. "Look! There is a graveyard! I won't stay here alone!" They were standing at the foot of the rough wooden steps leading up to the church door.
"Pooh! Don't be afraid of tombstones," he scoffed; but he was conscious of a little shiver in his back. "They can't bite, you know. Besides, all churches have graveyards and crypts and—"
"This one has no crypt," she announced positively. "Goodness, I'm mud up to my knees and rain down to them. Why doesn't he come?"
"I'll give the signal; we had to arrange one, you know, for the sake of identity." He gave three loud, guttural coughs. A dog in the distance howled mournfully, as if in response. Anne crept closer to his side.
"It sounded as if some one were dying," she whispered. "Look, isn't that a light?—over there among the gravestones!" A light flickered for an instant in the wretched little graveyard and then disappeared as mysteriously as it came. "It's gone! How ghostly!"
"Extraordinary! I don't understand. By Jove, it's beginning to rain again. I'm sure to have tonsilitis. I feel it when I cough." He coughed again, louder than before.
Suddenly the steady beam of a dark lantern struck their faces squarely; a moment later the cadaverous Mr. Hooker was climbing over the graveyard fence.