"It is your day; don't worry about my affairs," returned Carrington, with a forced laugh which gave colour to the popular report that the only vulnerable point in his armour of good nature lay in his impecunious condition and the consequent impossibility of his marrying on his own account.

It was only a passing cloud, however, and he hastened to change the subject, saying: "Come, you are late already, and a bride must not be kept waiting."

Allingford was thereupon hustled downstairs, and wept upon from all quarters, and his life was threatened with rice and old shoes; but he reached the street somehow with Mrs. Robert in tow, and, barring the circumstance that in his agitation he had embraced the butler instead of Sir Peter, he acquitted himself very well under the trying ordeal.

As they drove to the station his wife was strangely quiet, and he rallied her on the fact.

"Why," he said, "you haven't spoken since we started."

Her face grew troubled. "I was wondering——" she began.

"If you would be happy?" he asked. "I'll do my best."

"No, no, I'm sure of that, only—do tell me where we are going."

The Consul laughed. "You women are just the same all the world over," he replied, but otherwise did not commit himself; but his wife noticed that he looked worried and anxious, and that he breathed a sigh of unmistakable relief as their train drew out of Waterloo Station. She did not know that the one cloud which he had feared might darken his wedding day had now been dispelled: he had seen nothing of his brother.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH THE LONDON AND SOUTH WESTERN RAIL-WAY ACCOMPLISHES WHAT THE MARRIAGE SERVICE FORBIDS

It might be supposed that the heir to "The Towers" and Lady Scarsdale's very considerable property would meet with some decided opposition from his family to his proposed alliance with Mabel Vernon, an unknown American, who, though fairly provided with this world's goods, could in no sense be termed a great heiress. But the fact of the matter was that the prejudices of his own people were as nothing when compared with those of Aunt Eliza. In the first place she did not wish her niece to marry at all, on the ground that no man was good enough for her; and in the second place she had decided that if Mabel must 

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