When Miss Peckover suggested to her affianced that their wedding might as well take place at the registry-office, seeing that there would then be no need to go to expense in the article of costume, Mr. Snowdon readily assented; at the same time it gave him new matter for speculation. Clem was not exactly the kind of girl to relinquish without good reason that public ceremony which is the dearest of all possible ceremonies to women least capable of reverencing its significance. Every day made it more obvious that the Peckovers desired to keep this marriage a secret until it was accomplished. In one way only could Joseph James account for the mystery running through the whole affair; it must be that Miss Peckover had indiscretions to conceal, certain points in her history with which she feared lest her bridegroom should be made acquainted by envious neighbours. The thought had no effect upon Mr. Snowdon save to excite his mirth; his attitude with regard to such possibilities was that of a philosopher. The views with which he was entering upon this alliance were so beautifully simple that he really did not find it worth while to puzzle further as soon as the plausible solution of his difficulties had presented itself. Should he hereafter discover that something unforeseen perturbed the smooth flow of life to which he looked forward, nothing could be easier than his remedy; the world is wide, and a cosmopolitan does not attach undue importance to a marriage contracted in one of its somewhat numerous parishes. In any case he would have found the temporary harbour of refuge which stress of weather had made necessary. He surrendered himself to the pleasant tickling of his vanity which was an immediate result of the adventure. For, whatever Clem might be hiding, it seemed to him beyond doubt that she was genuinely attracted by his personal qualities. Her demonstrations were not extravagant, but in one noteworthy respect she seemed to give evidence of a sensibility so little in keeping with her general character that it was only to be explained as the result of a strong passion. In conversing with him she at times displayed a singular timidity, a nervousness, a self-subdual surprisingly unlike anything that could be expected from her. It was true that at other moments her lover caught a gleam in her eyes, a movement of her lips, expressive of anything rather than diffidence, and tending to confirm his view of her as a cunning as well as fierce animal, but the look and tone of subjugation came often enough to make their impression predominant. One would have said that she suffered from jealous fears which for some reason she did not venture to utter. Now and then he surprised her gazing at him as if in troubled apprehension, the effect of which upon Mr. Snowdon was perhaps more flattering than any other look.

‘What’s up, Clem?’ he inquired, on one of these occasions. ‘Are you wondering whether I shall cut and leave you when we’ve had time to get tired of each other?’

Her face was transformed; she looked at him for an instant with fierce suspicion, then laughed disagreeably.

‘We’ll see about that,’ was her answer, with a movement of the head and shoulders strongly reminding one of a lithe beast about to spring.

The necessary delay passed without accident. As the morning of the marriage approached there was, however, a perceptible increase of nervous restlessness in Clem. She had given up her work at Whitehead’s, and contrived to keep her future husband within sight nearly all day long. Joseph James found nothing particularly irksome in this, for beer and tobacco were supplied him ad libitum, and a succession of appetising meals made the underground kitchen a place of the pleasantest associations. A loan from Mrs. Peckover had enabled him to renew his wardrobe. When the last night arrived, Clem and her mother sat conversing to a late hour, their voices again cautiously subdued. A point had been for some days at issue between them, and decision was now imperative.

‘It’s you as started the job,’ Clem observed with emphasis, ‘an’ it’s you as’ll have to finish it.’

‘And who gets most out of it, I’d like to know?’ replied her mother. ‘Don’t be such a fool! Can’t you see as it’ll come easier from you? A nice thing for his mother-inlaw to tell him! If you don’t like to do it the first day, then leave it to the second, or third. But if you take my advice, you’ll get it over the next morning.’

‘You’ll have to do it yourself,’ Clem repeated stubbornly, propping her chin upon her fists.

‘Well, I never thought as you was such a frightened babby! Frightened of a feller like him! I’d be ashamed o’ myself!’

‘Who’s frightened? Hold your row!’

‘Why, you are; what else?’

‘I ain’t!’

‘You are!’

‘I ain’t! You’d better not make me mad, or I’ll tell him before, just to spite you.’

‘Spite me, you cat! What difference’ll it make to me? I’ll tell you what: I’ve a jolly good mind to tell him myself beforehand, and then we’ll see who’s spited.’

In the end Clem yielded, shrugging her shoulders defiantly.

‘I’ll have a kitchen-knife near by when I tell him,’ she remarked with decision. ‘If he lays a hand on me I’ll cut his face open, an’ chance it!’

Mrs. Peckover smiled with tender motherly deprecation of such extreme measures. But Clem repeated her threat, and there was something in her eyes which guaranteed the possibility of its fulfilment.

No personal acquaintance of either the Peckover or the Snowdon family happened to glance over the list of names which hung in the registrar’s office during these weeks. The only interested person who had foreknowledge of Clem’s wedding was Jane Snowdon, and Jane, though often puzzled in thinking of the matter, kept her promise to speak of it to no one. It was imprudence in Clem to have run this risk, but the joke was so rich that she could not deny herself its enjoyment; she knew, moreover, that Jane was one of those imbecile persons who scruple about breaking a pledge. On the eve of her wedding-day she met Jane as the latter came from Whitehead’s, and requested her to call in the Close next Sunday morning at twelve o’clock.

‘I want you to see my ‘usband,’ she said, grinning. ‘I’m sure you’ll like him.’

Jane promised to come. On the next day, Saturday, Clem entered the registry-office in a plain dress, and after a few simple formalities came forth as Mrs. Snowdon; her usual high colour was a trifle diminished, and she kept glancing at her husband from under nervously knitted brows. Still the great event was unknown to the inhabitants of the Close. There was no feasting, and no wedding-journey; for the present Mr. and Mrs. Snowdon would take possession of two rooms on the first floor.

Twenty-four hours later, when the bells of St. James’s were ringing their melodies before service, Clem requested her husband’s attention to something of importance she had to tell him.

Mr. Snowdon had just finished breakfast and was on the point of lighting his pipe; with the match burning down to his fingers, he turned and regarded the speaker shrewdly. Clem’s face put it beyond question that at last she was about to make a statement definitely bearing on the history of the past month. At this moment she was almost pale, and her eyes avoided his. She stood close to the table, and her right hand rested near the bread-knife; her left held a piece of paper.

‘What is it?’ asked Joseph James mildly. ‘Go ahead, Clem.’

‘You ain’t bad-tempered, are you? You said you wasn’t.’

‘Not I! Best-tempered feller you could have come across. Look at me smiling.’

His grin was in a measure reassuring, but he had caught sight of the piece of paper in her hand, and eyed it steadily.

‘You know you played mother a trick a long time ago,’ Clem pursued, ‘when you went off an’ left that child on her ‘ands.’

‘Hollo! What about that?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be nothing but fair if someone was to go and play tricks with you— just to pay you off in a friendly sort o’ way — see?’

Mr. Snowdon still smiled, but dubiously.

‘Out with it!’ he muttered. ‘I’d have bet a trifle there was some game on. You’re welcome, old girl. Out with it!’

‘Did you know as I’d got a brother in ‘Stralia — him as you used to know when you lived here before?’

‘You said you didn’t know where he was.’

‘No more we do — not just now. But he wrote mother a letter about this time last year, an’ there’s something in it as I’d like you to see. You’d better read for yourself.’

Her husband laid down his pipe on the mantel-piece and began to cast his eye over the letter, which was much defaced by frequent foldings, and in any case would have been difficult to decipher, so vilely was it scrawled. But Mr. Snowdon’s interest was strongly excited, and in a few moments he had made out the following communication:

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