k place at the Consulate at
Dieppe, and a perfectly miserable little bride got into the train for
Paris, accompanied by a fat, short, prosperous, middle-class English
husband, who had accumulated a large fortune in Australia, quite by
accident, in a comparatively few years.

Josiah Brown was only fifty-two, though his head was bald and his figure
far from slight. He had a liver, a chest, and a temper, and he adored
Theodora.

Captain Fitzgerald had felt a few qualms when he had wished his little
daughter good-bye on the platform and had seen the blue stars swimming
with tears. The two daughters left to him were so plain, and he hated
plain people about him; but, on the other hand, women must marry, and
what chance had he, poor, unlucky devil, of establishing his Theodora
better in life?

Josiah Brown was a good fellow, and he, Dominic Fitzgerald, had for the
first time for many years a comfortable balance at his bankers, and
could run up to Paris himself in a few days, and who knows, the American
widow, fabulously rich--Jane Anastasia McBride--might take him
seriously!

Captain Dominic Fitzgerald was irresistible, and had that fortunate
knack of looking like a gentleman in the oldest clothes. If married for
the third time--but this time prosperously, to a fabulously rich
American--his well-born relations would once more welcome him with open
arms, he felt sure, and visions of the best pheasant shoots at old
Beechleigh, and partridge drives at Rothering Castle floated before his
eyes, quite obscuring the fading smoke of the Paris train.

"A pretty tough, dull affair marriage," he said to himself, reminded
once more of Theodora by treading on a white rose in the station. "Hope
to Heavens Sarah prepared her for it a bit." Then he got into a _fiacre_
and drove to the hotel, where he and the two remaining Misses Fitzgerald
were living in the style of their forefathers.

Josiah Brown's valet, Mr. Toplington, who knew the world, had engaged
rooms for the happy couple at the Grand Hotel. "We'll go to the Ritz on
our way back," he decided, "but at first, in case there's scenes and
tears, it's better to be a number than a name." Mademoiselle Henriette,
the freshly engaged French maid, quite agreed with him. The Grand, she
said, was "_plus convenable pour une lune de Miel_--" Lune de Miel!

II

It was a year later before Theodora saw her family again. A very severe
attack of bronchitis, complicated by internal ca