.

"Oh, it's for me to say thank you," she said. "You've been so good to
me. Nobody could have been so kind."

The Beggar Man flushed.

"I hope you'll always be able to say that," he said awkwardly as he
raised his hat and turned away.

Faith went home on top of an omnibus. For the first time that evening
she felt that she could breathe freely. The sense of unreality was
leaving her, and she began to see things more in their true perspective.

She was taking a rash step! Young and ignorant of the world as she was,
she knew this, and realized that all she knew of the man whom she was to
marry was the little he had chosen to tell her. He might be
anything--anyone!

That he had money she was sure, and Peg had often said that with money
one could do anything! Money was the golden key to the world; and Faith
knew that it would be a golden key, not only for herself, but for her
mother and the twins.

They could have everything they wanted! Wonderful visions began to
unfurl before her eyes.

It was as if she wilfully held rose-tinted glasses before her eyes
excluding the vague shadows that haunted her. She would not look at the
dark side of what might be. She would keep her face turned towards the
sun.

But when she got home her spirits fell once more. She began to remember
that this was the last night of her old life. That after to-morrow she
would be quite, quite different. She would be the Beggar Man's wife! She
would be Mrs. Nicholas Forrester!

She could hardly eat any supper for the choking lump that would rise in
her throat. She knew that from time to time her mother glanced at her
with anxious eyes.

"Is anything the matter, Faith?" she asked at last, just as she had
asked last night, and Faith answered desperately that her head ached
and that she would like to go to bed.

When she was in bed the tears came. This was the first time she had ever
had a secret from her mother, and even the thought of the wonderfully
happy surprise it would be could not comfort her. She felt like a lost
child as she hid her face in the pillow and sobbed.

CHAPTER IV

Faith was married at nine o'clock the following morning. It was raining
hard, and as she stood beside the Beggar Man in the dreary registry
office she watched the raindrops chasing one another down the window.

The old dream feeling was upon her again, and she could not believe that
all this was really happening. The monotonous voice of the man who