r. Hanbury does not accept his
dismissal as inevitable; and as for you, Madge, you ought not even to
think of him. Captain King sent you that beautiful card-case on
Valentine's morning; that is what you should remember.'

'Captain King could send me a white elephant if he chose,' said Madge,
spitefully. 'There's no danger to him in anything he does. It's
different with poor Jack.'

'Madge,' said her sister, seriously, 'do you know that you are talking
as if you looked forward to this marriage with regret?'

'Oh no, I don't--I'm not such a fool,' said Madge, plainly. 'I know
it's stupid to think about Jack Hanbury; but still, one has got a
little feeling.'

Then she laughed.

'I will tell you another secret, Nan. If he daren't write to me he can
send me things. He sent me a book--a novel--and I know he meant me to
think the hero himself. For he was disappointed in love, too, and
wrote beautifully about his sufferings, and at last the poor fellow
blew his brains out.'

'Well, Mr. Hanbury couldn't do that, at all events--for reasons,' Nan
said.

'Now that is a very bad joke,' said Madge, in a sudden outburst of
temper; 'an old, stupid, bad joke, that has been made a hundred times.
I'm ashamed of you, Nan. They say you have a great sense of humour;
that's when you say things they can't understand; and they pretend to
have a great sense of humour too. But where's the humour in that?'

'But Madge, dear,' said Nan, gently, 'I didn't mean to say anything
against Mr. Hanbury----'

'In any case, there is one in this house who does not despise Mr.
Hanbury for being poor,' said Madge, hotly. 'It isn't his fault that
his papa and mamma haven't given him money and sent him out into the
world to buy a wife!'

And therewith she quickly went to the door and opened it, and went out
and shut it again with something very closely resembling a slam.

CHAPTER XXI.

DANGER AHEAD.

Nan waited the return of Frank King with the deepest anxiety. She
would see nothing in these wild words of Madge's but an ebullition of
temper. She could not bring herself to believe that her own sister--a
girl with everything around her she could desire in the world--would
deliberately enter upon one of those hateful marriages of convenience.
It was true, Nan had to confess to herself, that Madge was not very
impressionable. There was no great depth in her nature. Then she was
a trifle vain, and liked admiration; and she was evi