e let alone. But he
doesn't like marriage, and he's a man who knows jolly well what he likes
and what he doesn't. The only child died, and if he doesn't marry again,
I'm in a safe place. Good Lord! the difference it would make!" and his
grin extended itself.

It was three months after this that the Marquis of Walderhurst followed
Emily Fox-Seton out upon the heath, and finding her sitting footsore and
depressed in spirit beside the basket of Lady Maria's fish, asked her to
marry him.

When the news reached him, Alec Osborn went and shut himself up in his
quarters and blasphemed until his face was purple and big drops of sweat
ran down it. It was black bad luck--it was black bad luck, and it called
for black curses. What the articles of furniture in the room in the
bungalow heard was rather awful, but Captain Osborn did not feel that it
did justice to the occasion.

When her husband strode by her to his apartment, Mrs. Osborn did not
attempt to follow him. She had only been married two years, but she knew
his face too well; and she also knew too well all the meaning of the
fury contained in the words he flung at her as he hurled himself past
her.

"Walderhurst is going to be married!" Mrs. Osborn ran into her own room
and sat down clutching at her hair as she dropped her face in her little
dark hands. She was an Anglo-Indian girl who had never been home, and
had not had much luck in life at any time, and her worst luck had been
in being handed over by her people to this particular man, chiefly
because he was the next of kin to Lord Walderhurst. She was a curious,
passionate creature, and had been in love with him in her way. Her
family had been poor and barely decently disreputable. She had lived on
the outskirts of things, full of intense girlish vanity and yearnings
for social recognition, poorly dressed, passed over and snubbed by
people she aspired to know socially, seeing other girls with less beauty
and temperament enjoying flirtations with smart young officers, biting
her tongue out with envy and bitterness of thwarted spirit. So when
Captain Osborn cast an eye on her and actually began a sentimental
episode, her relief and excitement at finding herself counting as other
girls did wrought itself up into a passion. Her people were prompt and
sharp enough to manage the rest, and Osborn was married before he knew
exactly whither he was tending. He was not pleased with himself when he
wakened to face facts. He co