alone."

Lethbury pushed a chair forward and she sank into it.

"What did you tell him? That she is _not_ always--"

Mrs. Lethbury lifted a tragic eye. "No; I told him that she always
_is_--"

"Always _is_--?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. Lethbury made a call on his hoarded philosophy. He
saw Jane suddenly reinstated in her evening seat by the library fire;
but an answering chord in him thrilled at his wife's heroism.

"Well--what did he say?"

Mrs. Lethbury's agitation deepened. It was clear that the blow had
fallen.

"He...he said...that we...had never understood Jane... or appreciated
her..." The final syllables were lost in her handkerchief, and she left
him marvelling at the mechanism of a woman.

After that, Lethbury faced the future with an undaunted eye. They had
done their duty--at least his wife had done hers--and they were reaping
the usual harvest of ingratitude with a zest seldom accorded to such
reaping. There was a marked change in Mr. Budd's manner, and his
increasing coldness sent a genial glow through Lethbury's system. It
was easy to bear with Jane in the light of Mr. Budd's disapproval.

There was a good deal to be borne in the last days, and the brunt of it
fell on Mrs. Lethbury. Jane marked her transition to the married state
by an appropriate but incongruous display of nerves. She became
sentimental, hysterical and reluctant. She quarrelled with her
betrothed and threatened to return the ring. Mrs. Lethbury had to
intervene, and Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But the
blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's chivalry was proof against all his
bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty. Lethbury
feared that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed to urge him
to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared with the ring on her
finger, and consented to try on the wedding-dress; but her
uncertainties, her reactions, were prolonged till the final day.

When it dawned, Lethbury was still in an ecstasy of apprehension.
Feeling reasonably sure of the principal actors, he had centred his
fears on incidental possibilities. The clergyman might have a stroke,
or the church might burn down, or there might be something wrong with
the license. He did all that was humanly possible to avert such
contingencies, but there remained that incalculable factor known as the
hand of God. Lethbury seemed to feel it groping for him.

In the church it almost had him by the nape. Mr. Budd