In spite of his grumbling, however, the Major kept his appointment, and nine o’clock the next morning saw him shaking hands with Miss Brooke on Eglacé’s doorstep.
“Dismiss your hansom,” she said to him. “I only want you to come a few doors down the street, to the French Protestant church, to which you have sometimes escorted Mdlle. Cunier.”
At the church door Loveday paused a moment.
“Before we enter,” she said, “I want you to promise that whatever you may see going on there—however greatly you may be surprised—you will make no disturbance, not so much as open your lips till we come out.”
The Major, not a little bewildered, gave the required promise; and, side by side, the two entered the church.
It was little more than a big room; at the farther end, in the middle of the nave, stood the pulpit, and immediately behind this was a low platform, enclosed by a brass rail.
Behind this brass rail, in black Geneva gown, stood the pastor of the church, and before him, on cushions, kneeled two persons, a man and a woman.
These two persons and an old man, the verger, formed the whole of the congregation. The position of the church, amid shops and narrow back-yards, had necessitated the filling in of every one of its windows with stained glass; it was, consequently, so dim that, coming in from the outside glare of sunlight, the Major found it difficult to make out what was going on at the farther end.
The verger came forward and offered to show them to a seat. Loveday shook her head—they would be leaving in a minute, she said, and would prefer standing where they were.
The Major began to take in the situation.
“Why they’re being married!” he said in a loud whisper. “What on earth have you brought me in here for?”
Loveday laid her finger on her lips and frowned severely at him.
The marriage service came to an end, the pastor extended his black-gowned arms like the wings of a bat and pronounced the benediction; the man and woman rose from their knees and proceeded to follow him into the vestry.
The woman was neatly dressed in a long dove-coloured travelling cloak. She wore a large hat, from which fell a white gossamer veil that completely hid her face from view. The man was small, dark and slight, and as he passed on to the vestry beside his bride, the Major at once identified him as his mother’s butler.
“Why, that’s Lebrun!” he said in a still louder whisper than before. “Why, in the name of all that’s wonderful, have you brought me here to see that fellow married?”
“You’d better come outside if you can’t keep quiet,” said Loveday severely, and leading the way out of the church as she spoke.
Outside, South Savile Street was busy with early morning traffic.
“Let us go back to Eglacé’s” said Loveday, “and have some coffee. I will explain to you there all you are wishing to know.”
But before the coffee could be brought to them, the Major had asked at least a dozen questions.
Loveday put them all on one side.
“All in good time” she said. “You are leaving out the most important question of all. Have you no curiosity to know who was the bride that Lebrun has chosen?”