“What? Explain yourself, my son!”
“Do not urge me,” firmly answered the young man. “Let me take my secret with me to the grave.”
“This man cannot be guilty,” muttered the minister.
Then drawing from his breast a black crucifix, he placed it on a sort of altar rudely shaped from a granite slab resting against the damp prison wall. Beside the crucifix he laid a small lighted lamp which he had brought with him, and an open Bible. “My son, meditate and pray; I will return a few hours hence. Come,” he added, turning to Ethel, who during this conversation had preserved a solemn silence, “we must leave the prisoner. Our time has passed.”
She rose, calm and radiant; a divine spark flashed from her eyes as she said: “Sir, I cannot go yet; you must first unite Ethel Schumacker to her husband, Ordener Guldenlew.”
She looked at Ordener.
“If you were still free, happy, and powerful, my Ordener, I should weep, and I should shrink from linking
The Marriage of Ethel and Ordener.
Photo-Etching.—From drawing by Démarest.