before she was dressed to go to church her spirits had risen again and she was ready to laugh at Aunt Madge, who showed signs of tears.

"If you cry I shall take it as a bad omen," she told the old lady, kissing her. "What is there to cry for, when I am going to be so happy?"

Miss Chester put her arms round the girl and looked into her face with misty eyes.

14 "Darling—are you sure, quite sure, that you love Chris?"

"Do I love him?" The brown eyes opened wide with amazement. "Why, I have always loved him," she said simply.

But she held Miss Chester's hand very tightly as they drove to church in the closed car, and for the first time her child's face was a little grave. Perhaps it was the dismal day that oppressed her, or perhaps at last she was beginning to realize that she was taking a serious step by her marriage with Chris.

"It's for all your life, remember," a little warning voice seemed to whisper, and she raised her head proudly a her heart made answer: "I know—and there could be no greater happiness."

It was raining still when they reached the church, and the chauffeur held an umbrella over Marie as she stepped from the car into the porch. She wore a little traveling frock of palest gray, and little gray shoes and stockings, and a wide-brimmed hat with a sweeping feather.

Though she had never felt more grown-up in her life, she had never looked such a child, and for a moment a queer pang touched the heart of young Lawless as he turned at the chancel steps and looked at her as she came up the aisle with Miss Chester.

But Marie's face was quite happy beneath the wide-brimmed hat, and her brown eyes met his with such complete love and trust that for a moment he wavered, and the color rushed to his cheeks.

But the parson was already there, and the service had begun, and in less than ten minutes little Marie Celeste was the wife of the man she had adored all her life, and was signing her maiden name for the last time with a trembling hand.

And then they were driving away together in the car, to which Aston Knight, with a sentimental remembrance of other weddings, had tied an old shoe, and it flopped and dangled dejectedly in the mud and rain behind as the car sped homewards.

And Christopher looked at his wife and said:

15 "Well, we couldn't have had a worse day, could we?"

Marie smiled. "What does it matter about the Weather?"

Christopher thought it mattered the deuce of a lot, but then he was a man, and a man—even a bridegroom—never sees things through the same rose-colored glasses as a woman.

It was such a little way from the church to the house that there was no time to say much more, and then they were home, and Miss Chester, who had followed hard on their heels in another car, was crying over Marie and kissing her again, and Marie woke to the fact that she was really a married woman!

There was a sumptuous lunch, to which nobody but Aston Knight and the lawyer did justice, and then Marie went upstairs and changed her frock, because it was still pouring with rain, and wrapped her small self into a warm coat, and there were many kisses and good- bys, and at last it was all over and she and Chris were speeding away together.

Perhaps it is sometimes a merciful dispensation of Providence that the eyes of love are blind, for Marie never saw the strained look on Christopher's face or the way in which his eyes avoided hers. She never thought it odd when in the train he provided her with a heap of magazines and the largest box of chocolates she had ever seen in her life, and unfolded a newspaper for his own amusement.

She ate a chocolate and looked at him with shy adoration. He was her husband—she was to live with him for the rest of her life!

There would be no more partings—no more dreary months and weeks during which she would never see him. He was her very own—forever!

He seemed conscious of her gaze, for he looked up.

"Tired?" he asked

"No."

"Hungry, then? You ate no lunch."

"Oh, I did. I had ever such a lot."

16 "We'll have a good dinner to-night, and some champagne." he said.

"Yes." Marie had never tasted champagne until her wedding lunch to- day, and she did not like it, but to please Chris she would have drunk a whole bottleful uncomplainingly.

For their honeymoon they were going to a seaside town on the East Coast.

"Wouldn't it be nicer in Devonshire or at the lakes, Chris?" Miss Chester had asked timidly, but Chris had answered:

"Good lord, no! There's nothing to do there. We must go somewhere lively."

So he had chosen the liveliest town on the East Coast and the liveliest hotel in the town—a hotel at which he had stayed many times before, and was well known.

He was the kind of man who knew scores of people wherever he went, and in his heart he was hoping that he would meet scores of them now.

He gave an unconscious sigh of relief when, later, he saw Marie carried up to her room in the lift in the company of an attentive chambermaid, who knew that they were newly married. He went off to the buffet and ordered himself the strongest brandy he could get; while upstairs Marie was looking out her prettiest dinner frock and trembling with excitement at the thought of this new life into which she had so suddenly been plunged.

She was just ready when Chris came knocking at her door. He had changed into evening clothes, and was very immaculate altogether.

"Ready?" he asked. His blue eyes wandered over her dainty person.

"You look like a fairy," he said.

"Do I?" she smiled happily. "Do you like my frock?"

She turned and twisted for his admiration.

Chris said it was topping. They went downstairs together, the best of friends.

"I met some fellows just now that I know," he said, as they sat down to table. "I'll introduce you later. They're stopping here."

17 She flushed sensitively. "Did you? Did they know you were married?" she asked.

"I told them."

"Were they very surprised?"

"Well, they were—rather," he admitted, and frowned, recalling the very downright criticism which he had received from at least one of them.

At dinner Marie obediently drank one glass of champagne, and got a headache. She was rather glad to be left to herself for a little afterwards in the coolness of the lounge outside, while Chris went in search of his friends. She chose a chair that was not prominent, and sat down with closed eyes.

She had never stayed in a hotel before, and the noise and bustle of it all rather confused her. She was wondering how she would ever find her way through all the corridors to her room again, when she caught the mention of her husband's name.

It was spoken in a man's voice and spoken with a little laugh that sounded rather contemptuous, she thought.

She sat up instantly, headache forgotten. Probably this was one of the friends of whom Chris had spoken to her before dinner. She leaned a little forward, trying to see the speaker, but a group of ornamental palms and flowers successfully obscured him.

The man, whoever he was, was talking to another, for presently Marie heard a laugh and a second voice say: "Chris Lawless! Oh, yes, I know him! Is he really married?"

"Yes—married a girl he's known all his life. Quite a child, so they say."

"How romantic!"

"Romantic!" The man echoed the word rather cynically. "There's not much romance in it from all accounts—just a business arrangement, I should call it."

Marie sat quite still. She was not conscious of listening, but there seemed no other sound in all the world than this man's rather hard voice as he went on:

"Lawless was old Chester's adopted son, you know, and the girl was