"John," said my hero, gasping for breath, "are you sure of what
you say- are you quite sure you really married her?"
"Of course I am," said John; "I married her before the registrar
at Letchbury on the 15th of August, 1851."
"Give me your arm," said Ernest, "and take me into Piccadilly, and
put me into a cab, and come with me at once, if you can spare time, to
Mr. Overton's at the Temple."
CHAPTER LXXVII
I DO not think Ernest himself was much more pleased at finding
that he had never been married than I was. To him, however, the
shock of pleasure was positively numbing in its intensity. As he
felt his burden removed, he reeled for the unaccustomed lightness of
his movements; his position was so shattered that his identity
seemed to have been shattered also; he was as one waking up from a
horrible nightmare to find himself safe and sound in bed, but who
can hardly even yet believe that the room is not fun of armed men
who are about to spring upon him.
"And it is I," he said, "who not an hour ago complained that I was
without hope. It is I, who for weeks have been railing at fortune, and
saying that though she smiled on others she never smiled at me.
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