oversight I was never unfrocked, and I am still legally a priest of the Church of England."
"Heavens!" gasped Beale, "then this marriage is legal!"
"It's as legal as it can possibly be," said Parson Homo complacently.
CHAPTER XXI
BEALE SEES WHITE
"IN a sense," said Lawyer Kitson, "it is a tragedy. In a sense it is a comedy. The most fatal comedy of errors that could be imagined."
Stanford Beale sat on a low chair, his head in his hands, the picture of dejection.
"I don't mind your kicks," he said, without looking up; "you can't say anything worse about me than I am saying about myself. Oh, I've been a fool, an arrogant mad fool."
Kitson, his hands clasped behind his back under his tail coat, his gold-rimmed pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down at the young man.
"I am not going to tell you that I was against the idea from the beginning, because that is unnecessary. I ought to have put my foot down and stopped it. I heard you were pretty clever with a gun, Stanford. Why didn't you sail in and rescue the girl as soon as you found where she was?"
"I don't think there would have been a ghost of a chance," said the other, looking up. "I am not finding excuses, but I am telling you what I know. There were four or five men in the house and they were all pretty tough citizens—I doubt if I would have made it that way."
"You think he would have married her?"
