“Why, Kitty and I—­that is, Mrs. Willoughby and I—­her name’s Kitty, you know.”

“Keep what up?”

“Why, the—­the—­the fond illusion, and all that sort of thing.  You see I’ve got into such an infernal habit of regarding her as my wife that I can’t look on her in any other light.  I claimed her, you know, and all that sort of thing, and she thought I was delirious, and felt sorry, and humored me, and gave me a very favorable answer.”

“Humored you?”

“Yes; that’s what she says now, you know.  But I’m holding her to it, and I’ve every reason to believe, you know—­in fact, I may as well say that it is an understood thing, you know, that she’ll let it go, you know, and at some early day, you know, we’ll have it all formally settled, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

Hawbury wrung his friend’s hand.

“See here, old boy; you see Ethel there?”

“Yes.”

“Who do you think she is?”

“Who?”

“Ethel Orne!”

“Ethel Orne!” cried Dacres, as the whole truth flashed on his mind. 
“What a devil of a jumble every thing has been getting into!—­By
Heaven, dear boy, I congratulate you from the bottom of my soul!”

And he wrung Hawbury’s hand as though all his soul was in that grasp.

But all this could not satisfy the impatience of the Baron.  This was all very well in its way, merely as an episode; but he was waiting for the chief incident of the piece, and the chief incident was delaying very unaccountably.

So he strode up and down, and he fretted and he fumed and he chafed, and the trumpeter kept blowing away.

Until at last—­

Just before his eyes—­

Up there on the top of the bank, not far from where Dacres and Mrs. Willoughby had made their appearance, the Baron caught sight of a tall, lank, slim figure, clothed in rusty black, whose thin and leathery face, rising above a white neck-tie, peered solemnly yet interrogatively through the bushes; while just behind him the Baron caught a glimpse of the flutter of a woman’s dress.

[Illustration:  “HE GAVE A LOUD CRY OF JOY, AND THEN SPRANG UP THE BANK.”]

He gave a loud cry of joy, and then sprang up the bank.

* * * * *

But over that meeting I think we had better draw a veil.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ASTONISHING WAY OF CONCLUDING AN ADVENTURE.

The meeting between the Baron and Minnie gave a new shock to poor Mrs. Willoughby, who looked with a helpless expression, and walked away for a little distance.  Dacres and Hawbury were still eagerly conversing and questioning one another about their adventures.  Tozer also had descended and joined himself to the priest; and each of these groups had leisure for a prolonged conversation before they were interrupted.  At length Minnie made her appearance, and flung herself into her sister’s arms, while at the same time the Baron grasped Tozer by both hands, and called out, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all,