The Glen at Break of Day 353

pointed out that no woman need go through a
form of marriage against her will.

“Rintoul carried her off with no possible
purport,” he said, “but to set my marriage at
defiance, and she has had a conviction always
that to marry me would be to ruin me. It was
only in the shiver Lord Rintoul’s voice in the
darkness sent through her that she yielded to my
wishes. If she thought that marriage last night
could be annulled by another to-day, she would
consent to the second, I believe, to save me from
the effects of the first. You are incredulous, sir;
but you do not know of what sacrifices love is
capable.”

Something of that I knew, but I did not tell
him. JI had seen from his manner rather than
his words that he doubted the validity of the
gypsy marriage, which the king had only con-
sented to celebrate because Babbie was herself an
Egyptian. The ceremony had been interrupted
in the middle.

“Tt was no marriage,” I said, with a confidence
I was far from feeling.

“In the sight of God,” he replied, excitedly,
“we took each other for man and wife.”

I had to hold him down in bed.

“You are too weak to stand, man,’ I said,
“and yet you think you could start off this
minute for the Spittal.”

“JT must go,” he cried. “She is my wife.
That impious marriage may have taken place
already.”

“Oh, that it had!” was my prayer. “It has
not,” I said to him. “A cannon is to be fired