No personal acquaintance of either the Peckover or the Snowdon family happened to glance over the list of names which hung in the registrar’s office during these weeks.  The only interested person who had foreknowledge of Clem’s wedding was Jane Snowdon, and Jane, though often puzzled in thinking of the matter, kept her promise to speak of it to no one.  It was imprudence in Clem to have run this risk, but the joke was so rich that she could not deny herself its enjoyment; she knew, moreover, that Jane was one of those imbecile persons who scruple about breaking a pledge.  On the eve of her wedding-day she met Jane as the latter came from Whitehead’s, and requested her to call in the Close next Sunday morning at twelve o’clock.

’I want you to see my ‘usband,’ she said, grinning.  ’I’m sure you’ll like him.’

Jane promised to come.  On the next day, Saturday, Clem entered the registry-office in a plain dress, and after a few simple formalities came forth as Mrs. Snowdon; her usual high colour was a trifle diminished, and she kept glancing at her husband from under nervously knitted brows.  Still the great event was unknown to the inhabitants of the Close.  There was no feasting, and no wedding-journey; for the present Mr. and Mrs. Snowdon would take possession of two rooms on the first floor.

Twenty-four hours later, when the bells of St. James’s were ringing their melodies before service, Clem requested her husband’s attention to something of importance she had to tell him.

Mr. Snowdon had just finished breakfast and was on the point of lighting his pipe; with the match burning down to his fingers, he turned and regarded the speaker shrewdly.  Clem’s face put it beyond question that at last she was about to make a statement definitely bearing on the history of the past month.  At this moment she was almost pale, and her eyes avoided his.  She stood close to the table, and her right hand rested near the bread-knife; her left held a piece of paper.

‘What is it?’ asked Joseph James mildly.  ‘Go ahead, Clem.’

‘You ain’t bad-tempered, are you?  You said you wasn’t.’

’Not I!  Best-tempered feller you could have come across.  Look at me smiling.’

His grin was in a measure reassuring, but he had caught sight of the piece of paper in her hand, and eyed it steadily.

‘You know you played mother a trick a long time ago,’ Clem pursued, ‘when you went off an’ left that child on her ‘ands.’

‘Hollo!  What about that?’

’Well, it wouldn’t be nothing but fair if someone was to go and play tricks with you—­just to pay you off in a friendly sort o’ way—­see?’

Mr. Snowdon still smiled, but dubiously.

‘Out with it!’ he muttered.  ’I’d have bet a trifle there was some game on.  You’re welcome, old girl.  Out with it!’

’Did you know as I’d got a brother in ’Stralia—­him as you used to know when you lived here before?’