“That’s all right, then.”

Hardly had Bartholomew Storrs glanced at the document received from Mr. Hines than he lifted a stiffening face.

“What is this?” he challenged.

“What’s what?”

The official tapped the paper with a gaunt finger. “‘Minna Merivale, aged twenty-five,’” he read.

“That’s the name she went by.”

Unmarried” read Bartholomew Storrs in a voice of doom.

“Well?”

In the sexton’s eyes gleamed an unholy savagery of satisfaction. “Take her away.”

What?”