He saw the name go through the church like a stone through a window. He had never in his life been so glad of it, nor so ashamed of being glad. The clergyman went pale. The red-faced man's mouth opened and shut.
"Your Grace." The clergyman fumbled his book closed on one finger. "I am Fothergill, the incumbent here. I — Your Grace says there is an impediment?"
"I say there may be." Jasper made himself look at the groom. The man had turned fully round now, and his face was calm, pleasant, faintly puzzled — a handsome face, a little weathered, with very clear grey eyes. It was not a face Jasper knew. He searched it for something, anything, some trace of the man who had walked out of Bath on a May morning seven years ago with an eighteen-year-old girl on his arm and her mother's pearls in his pocket, and there was nothing there to find. "I have no impediment I can prove. I have one question. I will ask it, and then I will go, if I am answered."
"Your Grace," said the groom courteously. "Ask whatever you like."
"Where is my sister?"
For a moment the man only looked at him, with that expression of polite bewilderment. Then he smiled a little — not unkindly, the way one might smile at a stranger who has stopped one in the street and asked the way to a town in another county.
"I am afraid," he said, "I have not the honour of knowing Your Grace. Nor any sister of Your Grace's. My name is Saltash — Rupert Saltash, of Clifton. I think there must be some mistake."
"Your name was Lennard in the spring of 1810."
"It was not." Still courteous, still faintly amused. "It has been Saltash since I was christened, and there are a dozen men in Bristol who will tell you so. Your Grace has been misinformed — and I am sorry for it, for I see you have come a long way."
The red-faced man found his voice.
"This is outrageous!" He had let go of the bride's elbow at last and taken a step towards the aisle, his face going from red to purple. "Outrageous, sir — Your Grace — I don't care who you are, you've no right — in a church, in front of my niece, on her wedding day — with some — some cock-and-bull—"
"Mr. Penhallow," said the clergyman faintly.
"I'll not be quiet, Fothergill! Has he any proof? Has he a paper, a witness, anything? No, he says, I've no impediment I can prove! Then what is he doing here?" Penhallow swung back to Jasper. "Do you know what you've done, sir? Do you know what will be said of my niece in every parlour from here to Bath?"