Hilary stared, reddened as she paled, and with a slow smile shook his head. She murmured again:

"It's lost! the dagger! with all--"

"Why,--why, Miss Anna,"--his smile grew playful, but his thought ran back to the exploded powder-mill, to the old inventor, to Flora in those days, the deported schoolmistress's gold still unpaid to him, the jeweller and the exchanged gems, the Sterling bill--"Why, Miss Anna! how do you mean, lost?"

"Taken! gone! and by my fault! I--I forgot all about it."

He laughed aloud and around: "Pshaw! Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is some joke you're"--he glanced toward the show-case--

"No," insisted Anna, "it's taken! Here are the other things." She displayed the box.

Madame, very angry, smiled from it to Flora: "Oh, thou love's fool! not to steal that and leave the knife, with which, luckily! now that you have it, you dare not strike!"

All this the subtle girl read in the ancient lady's one small "ahem!" and for reply, in some even more unvoiced way, warned her against the eye of the gray man near the gun. To avoid whose scrutiny herself she returned sociably to his side.

"The other things!" scoffed meantime the gay Hilary, catching up Anna's word. "No! if you please, here is the only other thing!" and boyishly flaunted the license at Mandeville and all the Callenders, the throng merrily approving. His eye, falling upon the detective, kindled joyfully: "Oh, you godsend! You hunt up the lost frog-sticker, will you--while we--?" He flourished the document again and the gray man replied with a cordial nod. Kincaid waved thanks and glanced round. "Adolphe!" he called. "Steve, where in the dickens--?"

Whether he so designed it or not, the contrast between his levity and Anna's agitation convinced Flora, Madame, all, that the weapon's only value to the lovers was sentimental. "Or religious," thought the detective, whose adjectives could be as inaccurate as his divinations. While he conjectured, Anna spoke once more to Hilary. Her vehement words were too soft for any ear save his, but their tenor was so visible, her distress so passionate and her firmness of resolve so evident that every mere beholder fell back, letting the Callender-Valcour group, with Steve and the gentle detective, press closer. With none of them, nor yet with Hilary, was there anything to argue; their plight seemed to her hopeless. For them to marry, for her to default, and for him to fly, all in one mad hour--one whirlwind of incident--"It cannot be!" was all she could say, to sister, to stepmother, to Flora, to Hilary again: "We cannot do it! I will not!--till that lost thing is found!"

With keen sympathy the detective, in the pack, enjoyed the play of Hilary's face, where martial animation strove inspiringly against a torture of dashed hopes. Glancing aside to Flora's as she turned from Anna, he caught there no sign of the storm of joy which had suddenly burst in her bosom; but for fear he might, and to break across his insight and reckoning, she addressed him.

"Anna she don't give any reason" she exclaimed. "Ask her, you, the reason!"

"'Tain't reason at all," he softly responded, "it's superstition. But hold on. Watch me." He gestured for the lover's attention and their eyes met. It made a number laugh, to see Hilary's stare gradually go senseless and then blaze with intelligence. Suddenly, joyfully, with every eye following his finger, he pointed into the gray man's face:

"Smellemout, you've got it!"

The man shook his head for denial, and his kindly twinkle commanded the belief of all. Not a glint in it showed that his next response, however well-meant, was to be a lie.

"Then Ketchem has it!" cried Kincaid.

The silent man let his smile mean yes, and the alert company applauded. "Go h-on with the weddingg!" ordered the superior Mandeville.

"Where's Adolphe?" cried Kincaid, and "On with the wedding!" clamored the lads of the battery, while Anna stood gazing on the gray man and wondering why she had not guessed this very thing.

"Yes," he quietly said to her, "it's all right. You'll have it back to-morrow. 'Twon't cut love if you don't."

At that the gay din redoubled, but Flora, with the little grandmother vainly gripping her arms, flashed between the two.

"Anna!" she cried, "I don't bil-ieve!"

Whether it was true or false Mandeville cared nothing, but--"Yes, 'tis true!" he cried in Flora's face, and then to the detective--"Doubtlezz to phot-ograph it that's all you want!"

The detective said little, but Anna assured Flora that was all. "He wants to show it at the trial!"

"Listen!" said Flora.

"Here's Captain Irby!" cried Mrs. Callender--Constance--half a dozen, but--

"Listen!" repeated Flora, and across the curtained veranda and in at the open windows, under the general clamor, came a soft palpitating rumble. Did Hilary hear it, too? He was calling:

"Adolphe, where's your man--the minister? Where in the--three parishes--?" and others were echoing, "The minister! where's the minister?"

Had they also caught the sound?

"Isn't he here?" asked Irby. He drew his watch.

"Half-hour slow!" cried Mandeville, reading it.

"But have you heard noth--?"

"Nothingg!" roared Mandeville.

"Where'd you leave him?" sharply asked Kincaid.

His cousin put on great dignity: "At his door, my dear sir, waiting for the cab I sent him."

"Oh, sent!" cried half the group. "Steve," called Kincaid, "your horse is fresh--"

"But, alas, without wings!" wailed the Creole, caught Hilary's shoulder and struck a harkening pose.

"Too late!" moaned Flora to the detective, Madame to Constance and Miranda, and the battery lads to their girls, from whose hands they began to wring wild good-byes as a peal of fifes and drums heralded the oncome of the departing regiment.

Thus Charlie Valcour found the company as suddenly he reappeared in it, pushing in to the main group where his leader stood eagerly engaged with Anna.

"All right, Captain!" He saluted: "All done!" But a fierce anxiety was on his brow and he gave no heed to Hilary's dismissing thanks: "Captain, what's 'too late'?" He turned, scowling, to his sister: "What are we too late for, Flo? Good God! not the wedding? Not your wedding, Miss Anna? It's not too late. By Jove, it sha'n't be too late."

All the boyish lawlessness of his nature rose into his eyes, and a boy's tears with it. "The minister!" he retorted to Constance and his grandmother, "the minister be--Oh, Captain, don't wait for him! Have the thing without a minister!"

The whole room was laughing, Hilary loudest, but the youth's voice prevailed. "It'll hold good!" He turned upon the detective: "Won't it?"

A merry nod was the reply, with cries of "Yes," "Yes," from the battery boys, and he clamored on:

"Why, there's a kind of people--"

"Quakers!" sang out some one.

"Yes, the Quakers! Don't they do it all the............