f time. If my hopes had been fulfilled, how gladly
I should have shared my prosperity with you! As it is, I have far more
than enough for my wants as a lonely man, and plenty left to spend in
your service.

"God bless and prosper you, my dear. I shall ask you to accept a little
present from me, among the other offerings that are made to you before
the wedding day.--R.M."

The studiously considerate and delicate tone in which these lines were
written had an effect on Isabel which was exactly the opposite of the
effect intended by the writer. She burst into a passionate fit of tears;
and in the safe solitude of her own room, the despairing words escaped
her, "I wish I had died before I met with Alfred Hardyman!"

As the days wore on, disappointments and difficulties seemed by a kind
of fatality to beset the contemplated announcement of the marriage.

Miss Pink's asthma, developed by the unfavorable weather, set the
doctor's art at defiance, and threatened to keep that unfortunate lady
a prisoner in her room on the day of the party. Hardyman's invitations
were in some cases refused; and in others accepted by husbands with
excuses for the absence of their wives. His elder brother made an
apology for himself as well as for his wife. Felix Sweetsir wrote, "With
pleasure, dear Alfred, if my health permits me to leave the house." Lady
Lydiard, invited at Miss Pink's special request, sent no reply. The one
encouraging circumstance was the silence of Lady Rotherfield. So long as
her son received no intimation to the contrary, it was a sign that Lord
Rotherfield permitted his wife to sanction the marriage by her presence.

Hardyman wrote to his Imperial correspondent, engaging to leave England
on the earliest possible day, and asking to be pardoned if he failed to
express himself more definitely, in consideration of domestic affairs,
which it was necessary to settle before he started for the Continent. I
f there should not be time enough to write again, he promised to send
a telegraphic announcement of his departure. Long afterwards, Hardyman
remembered the misgivings that had troubled him when he wrote that
letter. In the rough draught of it, he had mentioned, as his excuse
for not being yet certain of his own movements, that he expected to
be immediately married. In the fair copy, the vague foreboding of some
accident to come was so painfully present to his mind, that he struck
out the words which referred to his marriage,