"Good-bye," said the Colonel, lifting his hat.
Romeo left Isabel at Madame Bernard's gate. "Hurry up," he said, in a
low tone. "I'll meet you under the big elm down the road."
"All right," she whispered.
Madame Bernard was asleep, so Isabel hastily crammed a few things into a
suit-case and slipped out of the house, unseen and unheard. As the half-
starved minister of the country parish was sorely in need of the
generous fee Romeo pressed upon him in advance, the arrangements were
pitifully easy. He was at the trysting place fully ten minutes before
she came in sight, staggering under the unaccustomed burden of a heavy
suit-case.
It might not have occurred to him to relieve Juliet of a cumbrous piece
of baggage, but he instinctively took it from Isabel. "Come on," he
said. "We've got to hurry if we don't want to miss the four-thirty."
"How long does it take to get married?" queried Isabel.
"Not long, I guess. See how people fool around over it, and we're
getting through with it in one afternoon. We're making a record, I
guess."
It seemed that they were, for when they came to the shabby little brown
house, near the big white church, the minister, his wife, and a next-
door neighbour were waiting.
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