"Take this in exchange"—she took the golden cross from her breast, and wound its chain about his neck; the cross glitters over his heart—"in witness of our mutual pledge. And Gulian,—" there was a look—an extended hand—"Come!"
She led him from the light into the shadows, and—while his every pulse bounded as with a new life—from the hall.
And, as they passed from the hall, Leo the Tenth, clad in his cardinal attire, led his young nephew lovingly among the shadows of the vast apartment,—now pausing to refresh himself with sparkling Heidsick, and now twining his arm about the nephew's waist, trying to soothe her mind upon some doctrinal point:
"Dearest Julia," he whispered, as they paused for a moment in the shadow of a pillar.
"Dearest Doctor," she responded—that is, the nephew, clad in blue frock-coat and trowsers; "you don't think that my husband ever will—"
The sentence was interrupted. A grave hidalgo, attired in black velvet, richly embroidered with gold, confronted the Doctor, otherwise Leo the Tenth, and whispered earnestly in his ear.
"Impossible!" responded Leo the Tenth, shaking his head. "Impossible, my dear Tarleton!"
"It must be," answered the hidalgo, emphatically. "A quiet room up stairs, and no one present save myself, the bridegroom and the bride."
"But my name will appear on the certificate," hesitated the Doctor, "and questions may be asked as to the place in which this marriage was celebrated, and how I came to be there."
"Pshaw! You are strangely scrupulous," returned the hidalgo. "I tell you, Doctor, it is a matter of the last importance, and cannot be put off. Then you can celebrate the marriage a second time, in another place, and—" he whispered a few emphatic words in the Doctor's ear.