then to her hand. Yes, it was
so--there was the wedding ring.

With what difficulty, with what disgrace he had contrived to escape from
marrying this young woman! His eyes 'wandered round the room. Just so
she would have looked, and every one else would have looked, if this
wedding dinner had been made for _his_ bride, but he would not have been
sitting up in the corner with three girls about him, laughing and making
laugh. No, and he would not have stood rather remote from her, as Giles
did. He thought he would have been proudly at her side. Oh, how could he
have been such a fool? how could he? how could he?

"She would have loved me just as well, just so she would have lifted up
her face, as she does now, and turned towards me."--No! The bride and
her husband looked at one another for an instant, and in one beat of the
heart he knew not only that no such look had ever been in her eyes for
him, but he felt before he had time to reason his conviction down, that
in all likelihood there never would have been. Then, when he found that
Dorothea seemed scarcely aware of his presence, he determined to return
the compliment, got excited, and was the life and soul of the younger
part of the company. So that when the guests dispersed, many were the
remarks they made about it.

"Well, young Mortimer need not have been quite so determined to show his
brother how delighted he was not to be standing in his shoes." "Do you
think Brandon married her out of pity?" "She is a sweet young creature.
I never saw newly-married people take so little notice of one another.
It must have been a trial to her to meet young Mortimer again, for no
doubt she was attached to him."

A quarter of an hour after the bride had taken her leave, and when all
the other guests were gone, Valentine went into the hall, feeling very
angry with himself for having forgotten that, as he was now a member of
her host's family, he might with propriety have seen Dorothea into the
carriage. "This," he thought, "shall not occur again."

The hall doors were open, servants stood about as if waiting still. He
saw a man's figure. Some one, beyond the stream of lamplight which came
from the house, stood on the gravel, where through a window he could
command a view of the staircase.

It was little past eleven, the moon was up, and as the longest day was
at hand, twilight was hardly over, and only one star here and there hung
out of the heavens.

"Why, that is Giles," t