“Presently we stopped.  I was led out—­led into a house, upstairs, my uncomfortable bandages removed, and the use of my eyesight restored.

“I was in a large room, furnished very much like anybody’s parlor, and brilliantly lighted.  My companion of the carriage was still at my elbow.  I turned to regard him.  My friends, he was masked like a Venetian bravo, and wore a romantic inky cloak, like a Roman toga, that swept the floor.

“I sat aghast, the cold perspiration oozing from every pore.  I make light of it now, but I could see nothing to laugh at then.  Was I going to be robbed and murdered?  Why had I been decoyed here?

“My friend of the mask did not leave me long in suspense.  Not death and its horrors was to be enacted, but marriage—­marriage, my friends—­and I was to perform the ceremony.

“I listened to him like a man in a dream.  He himself was the bridegroom.  The bride was to appear masked, also, and I was only to hear their Christian names—­Ernest—­Mary.  He offered no explanations, no apologies; he simply stated facts.  I was to marry them and ask no questions, and I was to be conveyed safely home the same night.  If I refused—­

“My masked gentleman paused, and left an awful hiatus for me to fill up.  I did not refuse—­by no means.  It has always been my way to make the best of a bad bargain—­of two evils to choose the lesser.  I consented.

“The bridegroom with the black mask quitted the room, and returned with a bride in a white mask.  She was all in white, as it is right and proper to be—­flowing veil, orange wreath, trailing silk robe—­everything quite nice.  But the white mask spoiled all.  She was undersized and very slender, and there was one peculiarity about her I noticed—­an abundance of bright, golden ringlets.”

The reverend gentleman paused an instant to take breath.

Mollie Dane, scarcely breathing herself, listening absorbed, here became conscious, by some sort of prescience, of the basilisk gaze her guardian’s wife had fixed upon her.

The strangest, smile sat on her arrogant face as she looked steadfastly at Mollie’s flowing yellow curls.

“I married that mysterious pair,” went on the clergyman—­“Ernest and Mary.  There were two witnesses—­my respectable young woman and the coachman; there was the ring—­everything necessary and proper.”

Mollie’s left hand was on the table.  A plain, thick band of gold gleamed on the third finger.  She hastily snatched it away, but not before Mrs. Walraven’s black eyes saw it.

“I was brought home,” concluded the clergyman, “and left standing, as morning broke, close to my own door, and I have never heard or seen my mysterious masks since.  There’s an adventure for you!”

The ladies rose from the table.  As they passed into the drawing-room, a hand fell upon Mollie’s shoulder.  Glancing back, she saw the face of Mrs. Carl Walraven, lighted with a malicious smile.