was just as much your wife then. She had been married to you only twice! And the first marriage was good enough for anything. I know that is so, for my sheriff says so!—Oh …" The ejaculation was due to the shame of sudden recognition of her confession. She blushed furiously; the Sheriff, looking radiantly happy, stepped over to her, took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.
"I think my dear," he said slowly and quietly, "that constitutes a marriage—if you will have it so?" She looked at him shyly and said quietly:
"If you like to count it a step on the way—like Joy's first marriage, do so—dear! Then if you like we can make it real when Joy becomes a wife—in the Church!"
Everyone in the room was so interested in this little episode that two of them only noticed a queer note of dissent or expostulation, coming in the shape of a sort of modified grunt from the two matrons of the party. Said Athlyne, still mindful of his intent to protect Joy:
"All right, Judy. I'll remember: 'my sheriff,' if there's any more chaffing. It seems that he'll be 'brittle' before long!" Judy flashed one keen happy glance at him as she whispered close in his ear:
"Don't be ungenerous!" For reply he whispered back:
"Forgive me—dear. I did not intend to be nasty. I'm too happy for anything of that sort!"
As breakfast wore on and the familiarity of domestic life followed constraint, matters of the future came on the tapis. When Mrs. Ogilvie asked the young couple if they had yet settled when the marriage—the church marriage—was to come off, Joy looked down demurely at the table cloth as her husband answered:
"I go up to town early in the morning to get the License. It is all in hand and there will be no hitch and no delay. I had a wire this morning from my solicitor about it; and also one from the Archbishop congratulating me. I shall be home by the ten ten train on Thursday and we can have the
