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.

“One wrench,” said the sobbing culprit, “one, and my ring was off!”

She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name in the vestry-book had been too enacting for a thought upon the other signatures.

“I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done,” said Adrian.

“Indeed, sir,” moaned Berry, “I were, and am.”

“And would do your best to rectify the mischief—­eh, ma’am?”

“Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would,” she protested solemnly.

“—­As, of course, you should—­knowing the family.  Where may these lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?”

Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied:  “To the Isle—­I don’t quite know, sir!” she snapped the indication short, and jumped out of the pit she had fallen into.  Repentant as she might be, those dears should not be pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss!  “To-morrow, if you please, Mr. Harley:  not to-day!”

“A pleasant spot,” Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey.

By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had brought his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham, and this was enough to satisfy Adrian’s mind that there had been concoction and chicanery.  Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman:  chance certainly had not brought him to the young one.

“Very well, ma’am,” he said, in answer to her petitions for his favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension and the bridal pair, “I will tell him you were only a blind agent in the affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless the consummation.  He will be in town to-morrow morning; but one of you two must see him to-night.  An emetic kindly administered will set our friend here on his legs.  A bath and a clean shirt, and he might go.  I don’t see why your name should appear at all.  Brush him up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o’clock train.  He will find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best in the dark.  Let him go and state the case.  Remember, one of you must go.”