was in the vestry, and the clergyman led the way
to the altar. Carefully as the secret of the marriage
had been kept, the opening of the church
in the morning had been enough to betray it. A
small congregation, almost entirely composed of
women, was scattered here and there among the
pews. Kirke's sister and her children were
staying with a friend at Aldborough—and Kirke's
sister was one of the congregation.

As the wedding party entered the church, the
haunting terror of Mrs. Lecount spread from
Noel Vanstone to the captain. For the first few
minutes, the eyes of both of them looked among
the women in the pews, with the same searching
scrutiny; and looked away again with the same
sense of relief. The clergyman noticed that look,
and investigated the License more closely than
usual. The clerk began to doubt privately
whether the old proverb about the bride, was a
proverb to be always depended on. The female
members of the congregation murmured among
themselves at the inexcusable disregard of
appearances implied in the bride's dress. Kirke's
sister whispered venomously in her friend's ear,
"Thank God for today, for Robert's sake!"
Mrs. Wragge cried silently, with the dread of
some threatening calamity, she knew not what.
The one person present who remained outwardly
undisturbed was Magdalen herself. She stood
with tearless resignation in her place before the
altar stood, as if all the sources of human emotion
were frozen up within her. What she suffered
that morning, she suffered in the secresy
which no mortal insight can divine.

The clergyman opened the Book.

            *             *             *             *

It was done. The awful words which speak
from earth to Heaven were pronounced. The
children of the two dead brothers—inheritors of
the implacable enmity which had parted their
parents—were Man and Wife.

From that moment, events hurried with a headlong
rapidity to the parting scene. They were
back at the house, while the words of the
Marriage Service seemed still ringing in their ears.
Before they had been five minutes indoors, the
carriage drew up at the garden gate. In a minute
more, the opportunity came for which Magdalen
and the captain had been on the watch—the opportunity
of speaking together in private for the last
time. She still preserved her icy resignation—she
seemed beyond all reach now of the fear that had
once mastered her, of the remorse that had once
tortured her to the soul. With a firm hand, she
gave him the promised money. With a firm face
she looked her last at him. "I'm not to blame,"
he whispered eagerly; "I have only done what
you asked me." She bowed her head—she bent
it towards him kindly, and let him touch her
forehead with his lips. "Take care!" he said.
"My last words are—for God's sake take care
when I'm gone!" She turned from him with a
smile, and spoke her farewell words to his wife.
Mrs. Wragge tried hard to face her loss bravely
—the loss of the friend whose presence had
fallen like light from Heaven over the dim pathway
of her life. "You have been very good to
me, my dear; I thank you kindly, I thank you
with all my heart." She could say no more—she
clung to Magdalen, in a passion of tears, as her
mother might have clung to her, if her mother
had lived to see that horrible day. "I'm
frightened for you!" cried the poor creature, in a
wild wailing voice. "Oh, my darling, I'm
frightened for you!" Magdalen desperately
drew herself free—kissed her—and hurried out
to the door. The expression of that artless
gratitude, the cry of that guileless love, shook
her as nothing else had shaken her that day. It
was a refuge to get to the carriage—a refuge,
though the man she had married stood there waiting
for her at the door.

Mrs. Wragge tried to follow her into the
garden. But the captain had seen Magdalen's
face as she ran out; and he steadily held his
wife back in the passage. From that distance
the last farewells were exchanged. As long as
the carriage was in sight, Magdalen's face looked
back at them she waved her handkerchief, as she
turned the corner. In a moment more, the last
thread which bound her to them was broken; the
familiar companionship of many months was a
thing of the past already!

Captain Wragge closed the house-door on the
idlers who were looking in from the parade. He
led his wife back into the sitting-room, and
spoke to her with a forbearance which she had
never yet experienced from him.

"She has gone her way," he said, "and in
another hour we shall have gone ours. Cry your
cry out—I don't deny she's worth crying for."

Even then—even when the dread of Magdalen's
future was at its darkest in his mind—the
ruling habit of the man's life clung to him.
Mechanically, he unlocked his despatch-box.
Mechanically, he opened his Book of Accounts, and
made the closing entry—the entry of his last
transaction with Magdalen—in black and white.
"By Rec'd from Miss Vanstone," wrote the captain,
with a gloomy brow, "Two hundred pounds."

"You won't be angry with me?" said Mrs.
Wragge, looking timidly at her husband through
her tears. "I want a word of comfort, captain.
Oh, do tell me—when shall I see her again?"

The captain closed the book, and answered in
one inexorable word:

"Never!"

Between eleven and twelve o'clock that night,
Mrs. Lecount drove into Zurich.

Her brother's house, when she stopped before
it, was shut up. With some difficulty and delay
the servant was aroused. She held up her hands
in speechless amazement, when she opened the
door, and saw who the visitor was.

"Is my brother alive?" asked Mrs. Lecount,
entering the house.

"Alive!" echoed the servant. "He has gone
holiday-making into the country, to finish his
recovery in the fine fresh air."