At last he got to the villa, and rang furiously.

After a delay that set the doctor stamping, Lally appeared.

“I must see Miss Carden directly.”

“Step in, sir; she won’t be long now.”

Dr. Amboyne walked into the dining-room, and saw it adorned with a wealth of flowers, and the wedding-breakfast set out with the usual splendor; but there was nobody there; and immediately an uneasy suspicion crossed his mind.

He came out into the passage, and found Lally there.

“Are they gone to the church?”

“They are,” said Lally, with consummate coolness.

“You Irish idiot!” roared the doctor, “why couldn’t you tell me that before?” And, notwithstanding his ungainly figure, he ran down the road, shouting, like a Stentor, to his receding cabman.

“Bekase I saw that every minute was goold,” said Lally, as soon as he was out of hearing.

The cabman, like most of his race, was rather deaf and a little blind, and Dr. Amboyne was much heated and out of breath before he captured him.  He gasped out, “To St. Peter’s Church, for your life!”

It was rather down-hill this time, and about a mile off.

In little more than five minutes the cab rattled up to the church door.

Dr. Amboyne got out, told the man to wait, and entered the church with a rapid step.

Before he had gone far up the center aisle, he stopped.

Mr. Coventry and Grace Carden were coming down the aisle together in wedding costume, the lady in her bridal veil.

They were followed by the bridemaids.

Dr. Amboyne stared, and stepped aside into an open pew to let them pass.

They swept by; he looked after them, and remained glued to his seat till the church was clear of the procession.

He went into the vestry, and found the curate there.

“Are that couple really married, sir?” said he.

The curate looked amazed.  “As fast as I can make them,” said he, rather flippantly.

“Excuse me,” said the doctor, faintly.  “It was a foolish question to ask.”

“I think I have the honor of speaking to Dr. Amboyne?”

Dr. Amboyne bowed mechanically.

“You will be at the wedding-breakfast, of course?”

“Humph!”

“Why, surely, you are invited?”

“Yes” (with an equally absent air).

Finding him thus confused, the sprightly curate laughed and bade him good-morning, jumped into a hansom, and away to Woodbine Villa.

Dr. Amboyne followed him slowly.

“Drive me to Woodbine Villa.  There’s no hurry now.”

On the way, he turned the matter calmly over, and put this question to himself:  Suppose he had reached the villa in time to tell Grace Carden the news!  Certainly he would have disturbed the wedding; but would it have been put off any the more?  The bride’s friends and advisers would have replied, “But that is no positive proof that he is alive; and, if he is alive, he has clearly abandoned her.  Not a line for all these months.”