* * * * *

And that is all that Aristide told me. There are sacred and beautiful
things in life that one man does not tell to another. He did, however,
mention that they forgot all about the unfortunate chauffeur sitting in
the rain till about three hours afterwards, when Aristide sped away to a
St. Albans hotel in joyous solitude.

The very next day he burst in upon me in a state of bliss bordering on
mania.

"But there is a tragic side to it," he said when the story was over.
"For half the year I shall be exiled to Bordeaux, Marseilles and Algiers
as the representative of Dulau et Compagnie."

"The very best thing that could happen for your domestic happiness,"
said I.

"What? With my heart"--he thumped his heart--"with my heart hurting like
the devil all the time?"

"So long as your heart hurts," said I, "you know it isn't dead."

A short while afterwards they were married in London. I was best man and
Jean, specklessly attired, was page of honour, and the vicar of her own
church at Chislehurst performed the ceremony. The most myopic of
creatures could have seen that Anne was foolishly in love with her
rascal husband. How could she help it?

As soon as the newly wedded pair had received the exhortation, Aristide,
darting to the altar-rail, caught Jean up in his arms, and, to the
consternation of the officiating clergy, the verger, and Anne's
conventional friends, cried out exultingly:

"_Ah, mon petit._ It was a lucky day for both of us when I picked you
up on the road between Salon and Arles. Put your hands together as you
do when you're saying your prayers, _mon brave_, and say, 'God bless
father and mother.'"

Jean obediently adopted the attitude of the infant Samuel in the
pictures.

"God bless father and mother," said he, and the childish treble rang out
queerly in the large, almost empty church.

There was a span of silence and then all the women-folk fell on little
Jean and that was the end of that wedding.

THE END.

* * * * *

THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA
BY
William J. Locke

Author of "The Beloved Vagabond," "Simon the Jester," etc.

_Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_

Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller

"Mr. Locke has succeeded in uniting with the firm carefulness of his
early work the rapid, fluent, vibrating style that makes his later books
so del