plain pretext; but you
have no idea what complications you may be storing up for yourself by
marrying a young girl--What is the sense in it?" he continued, a little
excited now. "The younger and prettier she is makes her all the more
unsuitable to be used merely as a tool in your game. Confound it,
Michael!"

"And her game, too," his host reminded him. His eyes were flashing now,
and that expression, which all his underlings knew meant he intended to
have his own will at any cost, grew upon his face.

"You forget that in Scotland divorce is not an impossibility and--_I am
going to do it, Henry_. Now, I had better write to old Fergusson, my
chaplain, and tell him to be in readiness, and I suppose I ought to see
my lawyers in Edinburgh, although, as there are no settlements and it is
just between ourselves, perhaps it does not matter about them."

"How old is the girl?" Mr. Fordyce felt it prudent to ask. "It is a
pretty serious thing you contemplate, you know."

"Oh! rot!--she is seventeen, I believe--and for that sort of a marriage
and mere business arrangement, her age is no consequence."

Henry turned to the window and looked out for a moment, then he said
gravely:

"Is it quite fair to her?"

Michael had gone to his writing-table, and was busily scribbling to his
chaplain, but he looked over his shoulder startled, and then a gleam of
blue fire came into his eyes, and his handsome mouth shut like a vise.

"Of course, it is quite fair. She wishes to be free as much as I do. She
gets what she wants and I get what I want--a mere ceremony can be
annulled at any time. She jumped at the idea, I tell you, Henry--I have
not got time to go into the pros and cons of that side of the question,
and I don't want to hear your views or any one else's on the matter. I
mean to marry the girl on Thursday night--and you can quite well put off
going South until Friday morning, and see me through it."

Mr. Fordyce prepared to go towards the door, and when there said, in a
voice of ice:

"I shall do no such thing. I cannot prevent your doing this, I
suppose--taking advantage of a young girl for your own ends, it seems to
me--so I shall go now."

Michael's temper began to blaze with this, his oldest friend.

"As you please," he flashed. "But it is perfect rot, all this high
palaver. The girl gains by it as well as I. I am not taking the least
advantage of her. I shall have to get her guardian's consent, and I
suppose he'll kn