"It is about three weeks ago. I was sitting, one stormy night—Tuesday night it was—in my study, in after-dinner mood, enjoying the luxury of a good fire and a private clerical cigar, when a young woman—respectable-looking young person—entered, and informed me that a sickly relative, from whom I have expectations, was dying, and wished to see me immediately.
"Of course I started up at once, donned hat and greatcoat, and followed my respectable young person into a cab waiting at the door. Hardly was I in when I was seized by some invisible personage, bound, blindfolded, and gagged, and driven through the starry spheres, for all I know, for hours and hours interminable.
"Presently we stopped. I was led out—led into a house, upstairs, my uncomfortable bandages removed, and the use of my eyesight restored.
"I was in a large room, furnished very much like anybody's parlor, and brilliantly lighted. My companion of the carriage was still at my elbow. I turned to regard him. My friends, he was masked like a Venetian bravo, and wore a romantic inky cloak, like a Roman toga, that swept the floor.
"I sat aghast, the cold perspiration oozing from every pore. I make light of it now, but I could see nothing to laugh at then. Was I going to be robbed and murdered? Why had I been decoyed here?
"My friend of the mask did not leave me long in suspense. Not death and its horrors was to be enacted, but marriage—marriage, my friends—and I was to perform the ceremony.
"I listened to him like a man in a dream. He himself was the bridegroom. The bride was to appear masked, also, and I was only to hear their Christian names—Ernest—Mary. He offered no explanations, no apologies; he simply stated facts. I was to marry them and ask no questions, and I was to be conveyed safely home the same night. If I refused—
"My masked gentleman paused, and left an awful hiatus for me to fill up. I did not refuse—by no means. It has always been my way to make the best of a bad bargain—of two evils to choose the lesser. I consented.
"The bridegroom with the black mask quitted the room, and returned with a bride in a white mask. She was all in white, as it is right and proper to be—flowing veil, orange wreath, trailing silk robe—everything quite nice. But the white mask spoiled all. She was undersized and very slender, and there was one peculiarity about her I noticed—an abundance of bright, golden ringlets."
The reverend gentleman paused an instant to take breath.