Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guileless youthful life.

“Well, ma’am! well?” he said.  He would bring her to the furnace.

“Won’t you see it all, kind sir?” Mrs. Berry appealed to him in pathetic dumb show.

Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he looked uninstructed, his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his comfortable full-bodied posture was the same.  “Well, ma’am?” he spurred her on.

Mrs. Berry burst forth:  “It were done this mornin’, Mr. Harley, in the church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by licence.”

Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony.  “Oh!” he said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved:  “Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. Feverel?”

Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him, saying:  “Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?”

Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity.

“This young gentleman was at church this morning?” he asked.

“Oh! quite reasonable and proper then,” Mrs. Berry begged him to understand.

“Of course, ma’am.”  Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid inanimate limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly.  “You were all reasonable and proper, ma’am.  The principal male performer, then, is my cousin, Mr. Feverel?  He was married by you, this morning, by licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty breakfast, and left intoxicated.”

Mrs. Berry flew out.  “He never drink a drop, sir.  A more moderate young gentleman you never see.  Oh! don’t ye think that now, Mr. Harley.  He was as upright and master of his mind as you be.”

“Ay!” the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison, “I mean the other form of intoxication.”

Mrs. Berry sighed.  She could say nothing on that score.

Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and tell him circumstantially what had been done.

She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed demeanour.

Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that identical woman who once in old days had dared to behold the baronet behind his mask, and had ever since lived in exile from the Raynham world on a little pension regularly paid to her as an indemnity.  She was that woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed her with.  How was she to recognize her baby grown a man?  He came in a feigned name; not a word of the family was mentioned.  He came like an ordinary mortal, though she felt something more than ordinary to him—­she knew she did.  He came bringing a beautiful young lady, and on what grounds could she turn her back on them?  Why, seeing that all was chaste and legal, why should she interfere to make them unhappy—­so few the chances of happiness in this world!  Mrs. Berry related the seizure of her ring.