"With pleasure, sir! I am a minister of the Gospel, gentlemen, as you may see," said Mr. Barrett, bowing to the room, "and a cousin of Mr. Drone's. I had been settled about two years up in Narraville last summer, when I took it into my head to run down here for a week or so on a visit to Mr. Drone. I had known Mr. Blake for years, and had a very high respect for his uprightness and integrity, else I never should have complied with the singular request he made me the day before I left."
"What was the request?" asked Mr. Darcy, on whom a new light was bursting.
"He came to me," said Mr. Barrett, "and having drawn from me a promise of strict secrecy, told me a somewhat singular story. A gentleman of rank and position, an English officer, had fallen in love with a gardener's pretty daughter, a young lady with more beauty than common sense, and wanted to entrap her into a sham marriage. He had intrusted the case to Mr. Blake, whose principles, he imagined, were as loose as his own, and Mr. Blake told me he would inevitably succeed in his diabolical plot if we did not frustrate him. Mr. Blake's proposal was, that I should marry them in reality, while letting him think it was only a mockery of a holy ordinance. He urged the case upon me strongly; he said the man was a gambler, a libertine, and a fortune-hunter; that he was striving to win for his wife a most estimable young lady—Miss Marsh—for her fortune merely; that if he succeeded, she would be miserable for life, and that this was the only way to prevent it. He told me the man was so thoroughly bad, that all compunctions would be thrown away on him; and at last I consented. To prevent a great crime, I married them privately in Mr. Drone's church. Mr. Blake was the witness, and the marriage is inserted in the register. I told Mr. Drone before I left, and he consented to keep the matter secret until such time as it was necessary to divulge it. I married George Percy Cavendish and Charlotte Nettleby the night before I left Speckport, and took a copy of the certificate with me; and I am ready to swear to the validity of the marriage at any time and in any place. I recognize them both, and that man and woman are lawfully husband and wife!"
Mr. Barrett bowed and was silent. Poor Cherrie, with one glad cry, sprang forward and fell on her knees before Mr. Val Blake, and did him theatrical homage on the spot. Val lifted her up, and looked in calm triumph at the baffled Englishman, and saw that that gentleman's face was purple with furious rage.
"Liar!" he half screamed, glaring with tigerish eyes as he heard Mr. Barrett, "it is false! You never performed it—I never saw you before!"
"You have forgotten me, I dare say," said Mr. Barrett, politely, "but I had the pleasure of marrying you to this lady, nevertheless. It is easily proved, and I am prepared to prove it on any occasion."
"You may as well take it easy, Cavendish," said Val. "Cherrie is your wife fast enough! Don't cry, Cherrie, it's all right now, and you're Mrs. Cavendish as sure as Church and State can make you."
"It's a most extraordinary story," said Squire Tod, "and I hardly know what to say to you, Blake. How came you to let him get engaged to Miss Henderson, knowing this?"
"Oh," said Val, carelessly, "Miss Henderson never cared a snap about him; and then Paul Wyndham came along and cut him out, just as I was getting ready to tell the story. I meant to make him find Cherrie before he left Speckport, and publish the marriage; only Providence let me find her out myself, to clear the innocent, and bring this man's guilt home. I had to keep Cherrie in the dark, as I never would have got that confession out of her."
"Well," said Mr. Darcy, rising, "it is growing dark, and I think there is no more to be done this evening. Burke, call a cab. Captain Cavendish, you will have to exchange the mess-room for the town-jail to-night."