im sadly.

"It is not that," she said. "I am unworthy of you, Jack. What is your
disgrace to mine? Would you marry the daughter of a man who--"

"Are you to blame for your father's sins?" Jack interrupted. "Let the
dead rest! He would have wished you to be happy. You are mine, mine!
Nothing shall part us, unless--But I won't believe that. Tell me, Madge,
that you love me--that your feelings have not changed."

"I do love you, Jack, with all my heart, but--"

He stopped her lips with a kiss, and drew her to his arms again.

"There is no but," he whispered. "The shadows are gone, and the world is
bright. Dearest, you will be my wife?"

He read his answer in her eloquent eyes, in the passion of the lips that
met his. A joy too deep for words filled his heart, and he felt himself
amply compensated for all that he had suffered.

* * * * *

The marriage took place in June, at old Shepperton church, and Jimmie
was best man. Sir Lucius Chesney witnessed the quiet ceremony, and then
considerately went off to Paris for a fortnight, while the happy pair
traveled down to Priory Court, to spend their honeymoon in the ancestral
mansion that would some day be their own. And, later, Jack took his wife
abroad, intending to do the Continent thoroughly before buckling down
in London to his art; he could not be persuaded to relinquish that, in
spite of the sad memories that attached to it.

Jimmie took a sudden longing for his native heath, and returned to New
York; but it is more than likely that he will spend a part of each year
in England, as so many Americans are eager to do. Madge does not forget
her father, unworthy though he was of such a daughter; and to Jack the
memory of Diane is untempered by bitter feelings; for he knows that she
repented at the last. The Honorable Bertie Raven has learned his hard
lesson, and his present conduct gives reasonable assurance that he will
run a straight course in the future, thanks to the friend who saved him.
Noah Hawker is doing five years "hard," and Victor Nevill is an outcast
and an exile in Australia, eking out a wretched existence on a small
income that Sir Lucius kindly allows him.

As for the two Rembrandts, the original, of course, reverted to Lamb and
Drummond. The duplicate hangs in the gallery at Priory Court, and Sir
Lucius prizes it highly because it was the main link in the chain of
circumstances that gave him a nephew worthy of his honored