ld never
be satisfied with less than the entire discharge of her trust, of the
full accord, never so entirely comprehensive and understanding as now,
that had been restored between them; and of the boy given back from the
gates of hell, from the jaws of death. It was no small struggle. He had
to conquer a hundred hesitations, the disapproval, the resistance of his
own mind. It was with a hand that shook a little that he put it back.
"That little beggar," he said, with his old laugh--though not his old
laugh, for in this one there was a sound of tears--"will be a hundred
thousand or so the poorer. Do you think he'd mind, if we were to ask
him? Come, here is a kiss upon the bargain. The money shall go, and a
good riddance, Lucy. There is now nothing between you and me."

Bice was married at the end of the season, in the most fashionable
church, in the most correct way. Montjoie's plain cousins had
asked--asked! without a sign of enmity!--to be bridesmaids, "as she had
no sisters of her own, poor thing!" Montjoie declared that he was "ready
to split" at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice "poor thing,"
she who was the most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the
good the gods provided her, without grumbling at the fate which
transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to
keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in
the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling
her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him
well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be
sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when
she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's
arm. There was a large and fashionable assembly, it need not be said.
Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if the girl was
happy, and Sir Tom saying to himself it was very well that he had no
more to do with it than as a friend. There were two other spectators who
looked upon the ceremony with still more serious countenances, a man and
a boy, restored to each other as dearest friends. They watched all the
details of the service with unfailing interest, but when the beautiful
bride came down the aisle on her husband's arm, they turned with one
accord and looked at each other. They had been quite still until that
point, making no remark. She passed them by, walking as if on air,