"You lie!"
The words rang out clear and sharp. They resounded through the edifice. Echoed along the galleries. Rebounded back from the chancel, and filled the whole interior with a cold, metallic startling ring. All present sprang to their feet and looked in amazement down the main aisle. Blackoat, of all there, did not turn his head. Had he been cast of bronze he could not have been more motionless, more dead.
"Who interrupts the ceremony?" asked the minister recovering from his surprise.
"I do!" and a lithe form in male attire bounded up the aisle and stood in front of the chancel rail. "I do! His Lawful Wife!"
It was Tommy!
To his dying day Ben will never forget the horror his eyes then saw. The church had the stillness of death. Not a muscle moved of those there gathered. Eyes starting from their sockets reached for the mass at the chancel rail, but motion there was none. All might have been chiselled out of stone. Pale as death the figure clad in male attire stood between the woman and man, a hand extended repelling the one, a hand upraised denouncing the other, two glittering brown eyes fastened on the man's face. And the man—slowly he turned upon his feet, as though some mechanism moved an inanimate object. Slowly came he round and faced the glittering eyes. The eyes of the dead! And as he faced them the sallow of his countenance turned to the white of clay, his jaw dropped upon his breast, revealing, in ghastly display, his white teeth. And up, up, up, from the ground came his eyes, until they rested on the white face before him. Then in a yell that called a responsive shriek from all present, he shrieked, "God Almighty!" and fell back—DEAD.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CONCLUSION.
Reader, we thank you for your kind attention. Our tale is told, and we shall impose upon it but a moment longer. It would not probably interest you to know that the twenty thousand dollars worth of forged notes, forged by the dead man, still remain in the hands of Mr. Jonah Nipper—and are likely so to do for all time to come. During the first three years of their married life, Ben and his beautiful wife received a letter without a signature. It told of a young girl that had been betrayed by a heartless man, and persuaded by him to leave her humble home. Harassed by her importunities in a moment of weakness to his cold, crafty self, he had allowed a marriage ceremony to be performed. Shortly after, the man's uncle died leaving provisions in his will that made the man hate the poor helpless being he found himself tied to. Her death was his only release. A dark night on a Hudson River steamer, a blow and a splash in the waters, and he thought himself a free man. But the girl lived. Lived to hunt him down with the fury of a tigress. In poverty she pursued her revenge. As a tramp, in male attire, she tracked her would be murderer. At last revenge seemed to come within her reach. She would wait until he had violated the law, and then crush him and his hopes, as a bigamist. But meanwhile the love that had died blossomed anew. She thought to live and love once more. It was not to be. The object of her new love had given his heart to another. Still she loved him, and as a last offering of her love placed within his reach the idol of his heart, all unsullied.
Both Bertha and Ben strove to discover her whereabouts. From that day to this, "Tommy" has been neither seen nor heard of by them. They live in all the luxury wealth can offer. As happy as happy can be. Smythe, Hough and Wasson were at the wedding, and all claim to have provided Ben with this terrestrial paradise by sending him on that trip to New Orleans. The Cleveland's house is known to the fraternity of the foot-path far and wide. There is not a vagabond of them but knows that a hearty meal and substantial help await all who knock at that door. And their calls are numerous and frequent.