tals----"

I shook my head decidedly. "I know the hotel where he goes," I said. "I
shan't send. I think if he were very badly wounded, he _would_ let me
know. He'd trust me to stand between him and--the others. Now--let's go
and see Di cut her wedding cake. You can have a piece to dream on if you
like."

"No good!" said Tony. "I always dream of you anyhow, when I dream at
all--except when I eat welsh rabbit: then I dream of the devil." But he
went with me like a lamb, and we spoke no more of Captain March.

CHAPTER XVI

I think if Sidney Vandyke had never taken the trouble actually to hate
me, he exerted himself to that extent on his wedding day.

I kept my distance when the others gave the bride and bridegroom a
send-off of waving hands and showering rice as they skimmed away in the
Grayles-Grice car (ready at last); but I'd caught a wandering glance or
two meanwhile from my new brother-in-law, and thanked my stars that
Heaven hadn't made me some poor private soldier under his command. Di
turned her cheek with the look of a martyred saint when I was supposed
to kiss her good-bye; and altogether I fancied that I should not be
urged to visit in Park Lane when the happy pair came back in the autumn.
I intended to be at Ballyconal then; but a thousand things were fated to
change my scheme and the schemes of all the other unsuspecting mice in
England and Europe.

The first thing--oh, such a small thing compared to those that were to
follow--which happened after Di's marriage was an announcement from
Father. He had proposed to Mrs. Main, and she had been "good enough to
accept him." That was his formal way of breaking the news to me, for we
had been on official terms only for some days following the wedding;
though to his darling Di he would probably have put it "Look here, girl,
she's jumped at me! Hurrah! The luck of Ballyconal's come right side up
again!" And Di would have congratulated dear old Bally, reminding him
that third times were always successful.

Of course, whenever I stopped to think of it, I had told myself that
this announcement was bound to come, and to come soon. But my head had
been full as a hive of bees with other thoughts; and besides, I hadn't
realized how I should feel the blow when it fell.

Vaguely, I'd taken it for granted that life would go on for me as
before. I liked Kitty, and she didn't dislike me, though, of course, Di
had been brilliantly her favourite. I had told myself th