"Now if you are composed, Maria," said Dr. Dunlap hurriedly, "I will say
what I followed you here to say. The best thing for us to do, now that I
am free to do it, is to have the marriage ceremony repeated over us and
made valid. I am ready and willing. The only drawback is the prejudice
of your family against me."

A magnanimous tone in his voice betrayed eagerness to put the Joneses
under obligations to him.

"Dr. Dunlap,"--when Maria had spoken his name she panted awhile,--"when
I found out I was not your wife, and left you, I began then to cough.
But now--we can never be married."

"Why, Maria?"

She began those formidable sounds again, and he held his breath.

Somebody in the distance began playing a violin. Its music mingled with
the sounds which river-inclosed lands and the adjacent dwellings of men
send up in a summer night.

"You know," said Maria when she could speak, "how we deceived my people
in Wales and in London. None of my family here know anything about that
marriage."

Another voice outside the walls, keen with anxiety, shouted her name.
Dr. Dunlap hurried a few yards from her, then stopped and held his
ground. A man rushed into the old building regardless of the broken
floor.