The groom, a thick-set, red-faced man, now stepped forward.

"D'ye think this is the right way to treat me, parson?" he demanded.
"Haven't I been always one of your best church members, and now when
I'm to be married, ye lock the church against me, and say that the key
is lost. What will Susie think? I'd like to know. She'll never get
over the disgrace."

"You are not half as sorry as I am," Parson Dan replied as calmly as
possible. "I am deeply mortified that such a thing should have
happened. But talking will not mend matters now. The key must be
found, so if one of you will hurry over to the Anchorage, and bring
Rodney back, I shall be greatly obliged."

Ned Percher at once volunteered to go, and soon he was speeding for the
captain's house by a short-cut through the field. There was nothing
else for the rest to do but to wait in front of the rectory until the
messenger should return with the boy.

The bride was greatly disturbed over the delay. So overcome was she
with the excitement that she had to be carried into the house, where
she lay upon the sitting-room sofa, quite hysterical. The women who
gathered around her by no means restrained their tongues, thus making
the young bride feel as badly as possible. Several expressed their
opinion of the clergyman for allowing such a thing to happen. It was
another example, so they said, of the mistake he had made in bringing
up a child of whose parents he knew nothing. They had said so before,
and were now more firmly convinced than ever. Others told what it
meant for a wedding to be delayed right at the church door, and related
a number of cases where ill luck had followed such weddings. Thus, by