“No, I know that,” said Keith, calmly; “but you must at least remember whether within four years you performed a marriage ceremony for a man whom you know as well as you know Ferdy Wickersham—?”

“Ferdy Wickersham!  Why don’t you go and ask him?” demanded the other, suddenly.  “You appear to know him quite as well as I, and certainly Mr. Wickersham knows quite as well as I whether or not he is married.  I know nothing of your reasons for persisting in this investigation.  It is quite irregular, I assure you.  I don’t know that ever in the course of my life I knew quite such a case.  A clergyman performs many functions simply as a ministerial official.  I should think that the most natural way of procedure would be to ask Mr. Wickersham.”

“Certainly it might be.  But whatever my reason may be, I have come to ask you.  As a matter of fact, Mr. Wickersham took this young girl away from her home.  I taught her when she was a school-girl.  Her grandfather, who brought her up, is a friend of mine.  I wish to clear her good name.  I have reason to think that she was legally married here in New York, and that you performed the ceremony, and I came to ask you whether you did so or not.  It is a simple question.  You can at least say whether you did so or did not.  I assumed that as a minister you would be glad to help clear a young woman’s good name.”

“And I have already answered you,” said Mr. Rimmon, who, while Keith was speaking, had been forming his reply.

Keith flushed.

“Why, you have not answered me at all.  If you have, you can certainly have no objection to doing me the favor of repeating it.  Will you do me the favor to repeat it?  Did you or did you not marry Ferdy Wickersham to a young girl about three years ago?”

“My dear sir, I have told you that I do not recognize your right to interrogate me in this manner.  I know nothing about your authority to pursue this investigation, and I refuse to continue this conversation any longer.”

“Then you refuse to give me any information whatever?” Keith was now very angry, and, as usual, very quiet, with a certain line about his mouth, and his eyes very keen.

“I do most emphatically refuse to give you any information whatever.  I decline, indeed, to hold any further communication with you,” (Keith was yet quieter,) “and I may add that I consider your entrance here an intrusion and your manner little short of an impertinence.”  He rose on his toes and fell on his heels, with, the motion which Keith had remarked the first time he met him.

Keith fastened his eye on him.

“You do?” he said.  “You think all that?  You consider even my entrance to ask you, a minister of the Gospel, a question that any good man would have been glad to answer, ‘an intrusion’?  Now I am going; but before I go I wish to tell you one or two things.  I have heard reports about you, but I did not believe them.  I have known men of your cloth, the holiest men on earth, saints of God, who devoted their lives to doing good.  I was brought up to believe that a clergyman must be a good man.  I could not credit the stories I have heard coupled with your name.  I now believe them true, or, at least, possible.”