“Now,” said Arnold, “it’s my turn to take to pen and ink.  I have a letter to write before we are married as well as you.  Only there’s this difference between us—­I want you to help me.”

“Who are you going to write to?”

“To my lawyer in Edinburgh.  There will be no time unless I do it now.  We start for Switzerland this afternoon—­don’t we?’

“Yes.”

“Very well.  I want to relieve your mind, my darling before we go.  Wouldn’t you like to know—­while we are away—­that the right people are on the look-out for Miss Silvester?  Sir Patrick has told me of the last place that she has been traced to—­and my lawyer will set the right people at work.  Come and help me to put it in the proper language, and the whole thing will be in train.”

“Oh, Arnold! can I ever love you enough to reward you for this!”

“We shall see, Blanche—­in Switzerland.”

They audaciously penetrated, arm in arm, into Sir Patrick’s own study—­entirely at their disposal, as they well knew, at that hour of the morning.  With Sir Patrick’s pens and Sir Patrick’s paper they produced a letter of instructions, deliberately reopening the investigation which Sir Patrick’s superior wisdom had closed.  Neither pains nor money were to be spared by the lawyer in at once taking measures (beginning at Glasgow) to find Anne.  The report of the result was to be addressed to Arnold, under cover to Sir Patrick at Ham Farm.  By the time the letter was completed the morning had advanced to ten o’clock.  Blanche left Arnold to array herself in her bridal splendor—­after another outrage on propriety, and more consequences of free institutions.

The next proceedings were of a public and avowable nature, and strictly followed the customary precedents on such occasions.

Village nymphs strewed flowers on the path to the church door (and sent in the bill the same day).  Village swains rang the joy-bells (and got drunk on their money the same evening).  There was the proper and awful pause while the bridegroom was kept waiting at the church.  There was the proper and pitiless staring of all the female spectators when the bride was led to the altar.  There was the clergyman’s preliminary look at the license—­which meant official caution.  And there was the clerk’s preliminary look at the bridegroom—­which meant official fees.  All the women appeared to be in their natural element; and all the men appeared to be out of it.

Then the service began—­rightly-considered, the most terrible, surely, of all mortal ceremonies—­the service which binds two human beings, who know next to nothing of each other’s natures, to risk the tremendous experiment of living together till death parts them—­the service which says, in effect if not in words, Take your leap in the dark:  we sanctify, but we don’t insure, it!

The ceremony went on, without the slightest obstacle to mar its effect.  There were no unforeseen interruptions.  There were no ominous mistakes.