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“Why don’t you fellows keep up?” grumbled a voice as the delinquents entered the Chapel.

“Did anybody fall? I thought I heard a cry back there,” said the tall young lady peering suspiciously into the group; but all seemed serene in the fitful torchlight.

In the Chapel huge stalactites and stalagmites meet each other to form arm-chairs, thrones, alcoves, pulpits, and a double niche conspicuous among its surroundings. Standing within this niche a restless pair exclaimed:

“What a capital place to be married! Who will pronounce the ceremony?”

“Bless you, my children!” invoked a sober-looking fellow, extending his arms in mock solemnity.

An earnest, significant look flashed from Eldon Brand’s eyes into the still blanched face of Minnie Dare. As they met the glance it bore but one meaning to her, and the rosy color again mantled her cheek.

“Time’s up,” said the guide; “come along.”

It was late ere the party completed the tour of the Short Route wonders, and there was barely time to dress for the ball-room at Cave Hotel, a dance being an attractive interlude between journeyings.

Indoor etiquette forbade the hateful espionage to which Hammond had subjected the girl he claimed as his own during the informal jaunt of the day. So at ten o’clock, despite the scowl on his dark face, she stood up in the dance with Eldon Brand.

Perhaps her persecutor might have attuned his wooing to something less ferocious, but soft words having proved futile, he sought to frighten her into compliance. Love’s dallying might come later on. He deemed his prize secure. She could not escape him. He held her father’s honor–aye, his very life–in his relentless grasp; for Colonel Dare was not a man who could survive disgrace. Let her rebel, and the world should hear an ugly story of rash speculation, involving a ward’s trust money; of financial ruin and despair. Oh, yes–she was his, fast and sure.

It required all her persuasive power to withhold her lover from a personal attack upon her betrothed husband.

“It can do no good, Eldon,” she urged; “my father has promised my hand to this man. He is somehow in his power. There seems no escape. Oh, that I might die and be free! It is like a horrible nightmare.”

Then his words came in passionate pleading. Eloquently the tones fell upon her ears. At length the hopeless apathy in her eyes gave place to interest, then animation, and finally to a degree of agitation but ill-concealed from the suspicious watcher. They were standing on a low balcony just outside the ballroom.

“Will you, dearest? Will you be brave for my sake–for our sakes?” were Eldon’s parting words.

“I will try,” she murmured softly, as with a fond pressure of the hand he resigned her to a new partner.

Early next morning Eldon Brand might have been seen returning from a little wayside shop with a bundle, whose contents–a ball of heavy twine, a can of oil, and a box of matches–would have surprised his fellow tourists. He conversed earnestly for some minutes with Stephen, the favorite guide of Mammoth Cave, to whom he also conveyed some bank notes; and at eight o’clock he joined the party en route for the nine-mile tramp into the cave. For two miles the way was the same as that of the short route, bats and all. Then came the immense hall where rude plank seats still attest the worship of pioneer settlers in the land of Indians and wild beasts. Here they sat and sang hymns, while countless echoes repeated the sounds.

They paused in the Ball Room; squeezed through Fat Man’s Misery, that zig-zag passage so narrow and winding that the one behind cannot see his neighbor a yard ahead; and then out into the ample comfort of Great Relief. Merrily they filled the little boats and sailed down Echo River, where abound the eyeless fish; crossed Lake Lethe, where all care is said to be left behind; passed the huge Granite Coffin; stood wondering before the Great Eastern; shuddered beside the Dead Sea and the Bottomless Pit; climbed Martha’s Vineyard, where huge bunches of grapes in stone looked as natural as life; took lunch in Washington Hall; revelled in the snow-white crystals of Siliman’s Avenue; crossed the Rocky Mountains to Traveller’s Rest, and there wrote their names upon the extreme wall, that perpetual register of hundreds of sightseers.