e head of the family and not himself was going to give the bride away.
Lord Rashborough, a little awkward in his new frock coat, was fuming
about the library. He was an open-air man and hated the society into
which his wife constantly dragged him.

"Don't be too late," he said. "Always like to be punctual. Of course
that father of yours has not turned up, though he promised to drive to
the church, with us."

"Father was never known to be in time in his life," Beatrice said
calmly. Her dull depression had gone, she was feeling quite cool and
tranquil. If anybody had asked her, she would have said that the
bitterness of death had passed. "It is not necessary to wait for him."

"He'll understand," Lord Rashborough joined in. "We can leave a message,
and he can follow to the church in a hansom. Let us be moving, Beatrice,
if you are quite ready."

With wonderful calmness Beatrice answered that she was quite ready. A
little knot of spectators had gathered outside to see the bride depart.
Two or three carriages were there, and into the first, with the splendid
pair of bays, Lord Rashborough handed Beatrice. They drove along the
familiar streets that seemed to Beatrice as though she was seeing them
for the last time. She felt like a doomed woman with the deadly virus of
consumption in her blood when she is being ordered abroad with the
uncertain chance that she might never see England again. It almost
seemed to Beatrice that she was asleep, and that the whole thing was
being enacted in a dream.

"Here we are at last," Rashborough exclaimed. "What a mob of women! What
a lot of flowers! Why anybody wants to make all this fuss over getting
married beats me. Come along."

It was a society wedding in the highest sense of the word, and the
church was crowded. There was a rustle and a stir as the bride swept up
the aisle, and the organ boomed out. There was a little delay at the
altar, for the father of the bride had not yet arrived, and there was a
disposition to give him a little latitude. Only Lord Rashborough
rebelled.

"Let's get on," he said. "Darryll may be half an hour late. One can
never tell. And I've got a most important appointment at Tattersall's at
half-past two."

Beatrice had no objection to make--she would have objected to nothing at
that moment. In the same dreamy way, presently she found herself
kneeling at the altar, and a clergyman was saying something that
conveyed absolutely nothing to her intelligenc