flannels, making her do all the bowling and fielding while he had the bat, Chris in his first silk hat, daring her to laugh at him—and, last of all, Chris as he had looked at her that day outside Westminster Abbey when he asked her to marry him. 

She could remember that he had said, "Well, is the idea too dreadful?" and she supposed now he had said that because the idea had been dreadful to him. 

A bachelor husband! It seemed so completely to sum up the situation, and before her eyes rose a dreadful picture of the future in which Chris would be nothing more to her than he had been during the past five years. 

He would never want to be with her. He would still go his own way. He would make his own friends and his own amusements, and she—what could she do with the rest of her life? 

"He's on his honeymoon here, you know," the voice went on with just a shade of amusement in it. "Fancy a honeymoon in this hotel! He didn't mean to be dull, did he? I suppose he knew he was morally certain to meet half his pals down here." 

Marie's hands were tearing a little lace handkerchief she carried— 20 it had been her wedding handkerchief—Aunt Madge had given it to her just before they started for church, and had told her that her mother had carried it at her wedding. 

20

"But I hope you will be much, much happier than your mother, darling child," so Aunt Madge had said as she kissed her. 

Poor Aunt Madge! And poor mother! Maria knew that her mother's marriage had been anything but happy, and she was glad when she saw that unconsciously she had torn the little lace handkerchief to rags. At least now it could not be handed on to any other poor little bride as an omen of ill-luck. 

"What about that game of billiards?" the voice asked with a yawn, and there was a movement on the other side of the bank of ferns which hid the speaker from Marie. 

She could not see him as he moved away, and she sat on, numbed and cold, until presently Chris came looking for her and found her out. 

"Here you are then! I thought you were in the drawing-room. I want to introduce you to Dakers, Marie Celeste!" He seemed conscious all at once of her pallor. "Don't you feel well?" he asked. 

She rose to her feet, forcing a smile. 

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