out in her name. Mr Ewing
pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and
Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult. He also
desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him
notice on the spot.

"I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone," said she grandly.
"I intend to travel for a time."

The wedding was quiet, but as "decent" as the trousseau. The other
sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy--who delighted in the
connection, and received a thumping fee--performed the ceremony. Deb
gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a
diamond bracelet forced upon her. She sold it as soon as the donor's
back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her
possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture. The
breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the
best hotels; the bride's handsome luggage had also been brought
thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom
met. There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from
Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her
station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed
at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the
uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite.
Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was gently
but firmly ignored.

"I will write," she said. "I will see you again soon. I will let you
know my plans. Good-bye!"

And they went. There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on
inviting none--for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence
upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim. She gained the one end she
had schemed for throughout--to get past the risks of the public
marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied,
unshamed. The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his
present; but she had "bluffed" them with her implied
misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the
wedding. Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft--though he did not
mention it--was ill at the time.

So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then--professing to go
travelling--went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years.

Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart
luggage and smart maid, and her am