st catch within reach, and she was
not likely to repent of her bargain at this stage.

So, unconcernedly, he went his way, throwing a couple of _annas_ with
careless generosity to a beggar who followed him along the road whining
for alms, well-satisfied with himself and with all the world on that
wonderful night that had witnessed the final triumph of the woman whom
he had chosen for his bride, asking nought of the gods save that which
they had deigned to bestow--Fortune's favourite whom every man must
envy.

CHAPTER IV

THE BRIDE

It was remarked by Tommy's brother-officers on the following day that it
was he rather than the bride who displayed all the shyness that befitted
the occasion.

As he walked up the aisle with his sister's hand on his arm, his face
was crimson and reluctant, and he stared straight before him as if
unwilling to meet all the watching eyes that followed their progress.
But the bride walked proudly and firmly, her head held high with even
the suspicion of an upward, disdainful curve to her beautiful mouth, the
ghost of a defiant smile. To all who saw her she was a splendid
spectacle of bridal content.

"Unparalleled effrontery!" whispered Lady Harriet, surveying the proud
young face through her lorgnettes.

"Ah, but she is exquisite," murmured Mrs. Ralston with a wistful mist in
her faded eyes.

"'Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,'" scoffed little
Mrs. Ermsted upon whose cheeks there bloomed a faint fixed glow.

Yes, she was splendid. Even the most hostile had to admit it. On that,
the day of her final victory, she surpassed herself. She shone as a
queen with majestic self-assurance, wholly at her ease, sublimely
indifferent to all criticism.

At the chancel-steps she bestowed a brief smile of greeting upon her
waiting bridegroom, and for a single moment her steady eyes rested,
though without any gleam of recognition, upon the dark face of the best
man.

Then the service began, and with the utmost calmness of demeanour she
took her part.

When the service was over, Tommy extended his hesitating invitation to
Lady Harriet and his commanding officer to follow the newly wedded pair
to the vestry. They went. Colonel Mansfield with a species of jocose
pomposity specially assumed for the occasion, his wife, upright,
thin-lipped, forbidding, instinct with wordless disapproval.

The bride,--the veil thrown back from her beautiful face,--stood
laughing with her