engagement to the Honourable Stephen Vandeleur.

Of course I went south for Janet's wedding.

If I had thought she was being forced into this marriage (Duncan was
snob enough) I should not have gone a step, but should have done my best
to prevent it; but I could not think that from the tone of the letter;
and Paul wrote as well all about it. I could but think I had been
mistaken; that there had been no serious engagement between them, but
only a flirtation, as they might call it, or something of that sort: a
very reprehensible flirtation, with my Puritanical notions, it seemed to
me. I need not say I was greatly disappointed.

So in due course south I went.

Paul met me--handsomer and more dictatorial than ever; his blue eyes
clear and piercing as before. He seemed quite pleased; said Stephen
Vandeleur was a good fellow; was most impertinently sarcastic about
Duncan's aristocratic guests; and altogether appeared in good spirits.
Janet I did not think looking well. She seemed very nervous, and made
the remark that she wished it were six months ago; but of course it was
natural a girl should be a little hysterical on the eve of her
wedding-day.

The morrow came, and the wedding with it. I thought it a very
unpleasant one. Whatever might be Stephen Vandeleur's own feelings, he
seemed, as Paul said, a very good fellow. It was evident his friends
only countenanced it on consideration of the huge dowry Janet brought
with her. Some of them were gentlepeople, as I understand the word, and
some were not; but Duncan, who appeared really to think the mere
accident of superior birth in itself a guarantee of personal merit, as
Paul very truly put it, grovelled all round, until I was sick with
shame. Paul, however, was at his best and wittiest and brightest, and
kept everybody in tolerably good humour.

When the carriage came to take the bride and bridegroom away, I
remembered some trifle of Janet's that had been left in the
conservatory; and, as I was in the hall at the time, ran hastily outside
and round by the gravel to the door opening from the lawn, which was my
shortest way to the conservatory from there.

Suddenly I stood quite still. Paul was looking out of the library
window, and Janet, ready for departure, came falteringly in and stood
behind him. He did not look towards her. "Paul!" she whispered
entreatingly; and although so low there was the utmost anguish in the
tone: "Paul." As though not knowing what she did,