n to sacrifice the hopes
of my whole life, to throw away the only opportunity I can ever have
of righting my wrongs, in order to gratify a sentimental whim? For
God's sake, think a little first before you sacrifice me. You promised
to do it."

Never before had Angela seen her father so strongly excited; he was
positively shaking with agitation. She looked at him steadily, and
with such contempt that, even in his excitement, he quailed before
her.

"Very well, then, I will carry out my promise, dreadful as it is to
me; but remember that it is only because you beg it, and that the
responsibility of its consequences must always remain with you. Now,
are you satisfied?--you will get your land."

Philip's dark face assumed a look of fervent gratitude, but before he
had time to reply, a messenger came to say that "the gentleman" was
waiting.

Her resolve once taken, Angela followed him with an untroubled face
into the room where the registrar, a gentleman neatly dressed in
black, was sitting at a sort of desk. Here the first thing her glance
fell upon was the person of George Caresfoot. Although it was now the
second week in June, he wore a respirator over his mouth and a scarf
round his neck, and coughed very much. These were the first things she
noticed. The next was that he was much thinner, so thin that the
cheek-bones stood out from the level of his face, whilst the little
blood-shot eyes seemed to protrude, giving to his general appearance,
even with the mouth (his worst feature) hidden by the respirator, an
unusually repulsive look. He was leaning on the arm of Lady Bellamy,
who greeted Angela with a smile which the latter fancied had something
of triumph in it.

With the exception of the messenger, who played the part of clerk in
this civil ceremony, there was nobody else in the room. No greetings
were interchanged, and in another moment Angela was standing, dressed
in her funeral black, by George's side before the registrar, and the
ceremony had begun.

But from that moment, although her beautiful face preserved its
composure, she scarcely saw or heard anything of what was going on. It
was as though all the streams of thought in her brain had burst their
banks and mingled in a great and turbulent current. She was filled
with thought, but could seize upon no one idea, whilst within her mind
she heard a sound as of the continuous whirring of broken machinery.

Objects and individuals, real and imagined, prese