CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.


The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in
his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his
cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with
iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch
at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy
purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own portly
person.

The world went well with the Reverend Raymond. Silks rustled and
diamonds flashed every Sunday in the cushioned pews of his "uptown"
church; the _élite_ of Gotham sat under his teaching, and his sixty
years and the cares of life rested lightly on his broad shoulders.

It had been a very smoothly flowing life--those sixty years--gliding
along as sluggishly calm as the waters of a canal. But on this night the
still surface was destined to be ruffled--on this night, so strange, so
extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it
actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of
excitement in those sixty years.

A wet and stormy night. The rain beat ceaselessly against the curtained
windows; the wild spring wind shrieked through the city streets, icily
cold; a bad, black night--starless, moonless.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh gave a little comfortable shiver as he