had quitted Raynham, and this
was enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been concoction and
chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman: chance
certainly had not brought him to the young one.

"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions for his
favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension and
the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were only a blind agent in the
affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless the
consummation. He will be in town to-morrow morning; but one of you two
must see him to-night. An emetic kindly administered will set our friend
here on his legs. A bath and a clean shirt, and he might go. I don't
see why your name should appear at all. Brush him up, and send him to
Bellingham by the seven o'clock train. He will find his way to Raynham;
he knows the neighbourhood best in the dark. Let him go and state the
case. Remember, one of you must go."

With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between the
couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their virtues
over, Adrian said, "Good morning."

Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse a piece of his
cake, Mr. Harley?"

"Oh, dear, no, ma'am," Adrian turned to the cake with alacrity. "I shall
claim a very large piece. Richard has a great many friends who will
rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs. Berry. Put
it in paper, if you please. I shall be delighted to carry it to them,
and apportion it equitably according to their several degrees of
relationship."

Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through it, the
sweetness and hapless innocence of the bride was presented to her, and
she launched into eulogies of Lucy, and clearly showed how little she
regretted her conduct. She vowed that they seemed made for each other;
that both, were beautiful; both had spirit; both were innocent; and to
part them, or make them unhappy, would be, Mrs. Berry wrought herself to
cry aloud, oh, such a pity!

Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact opinion. He
took the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitudinous promises, and left
Mrs. Berry to bless his good heart.

"So dies the System!" was Adrian's comment in the street. "And now let
prophets roar! He dies respectably in a marriage-bed, which is more than
I should have foretold of the monster. Meantime," he gave the cake a
dramatic tap, "I'll go sow ni