Mr. Plew had dreaded an explosion of
wrath and mortification on Veronica's part
when she should learn her father's
marriage.  He knew her pride, her social
ambition, her notion of her father's superiority
by birth and breeding to most of those
with whom he was brought into contact at
Shipley.  Even at Shipley the vicar's marriage
was looked upon as a terrible mesalliance.
Everybody was offended and disgusted:
the gentry, that the vicar should
have stooped so low; the farmers, that
Meggitt should have been raised so
high. Mrs. Sack made it a text for
justifying her secession from orthodoxy, and
for prophesying the speedy downfall of the
Establishment. The men wondered what
could have bewitched rosy-cheeked Cissy
Meggitt, a well-grown lass, as might have
had her pick in the county, to go and tie
herself up to an old man like that, and him
as poor as a rat into the bargain.  The
women pitied the vicar, that they did. He
was a fool, well and good, that they didn't
gainsay.  But Mrs. Meggitt's artfulness
passed everything.  She'd wheedled the
vicar till he didn't know which end of him
was uppermost. They had thought it
wouldn't never come to good, having a
governess, and learning to play on the
pianny.  And now you saw, didn't you?
If the height (a mysterious and oft-
reiterated charge) of Mrs. Meggitt had been
onbearable before, what did you suppose
it 'ud be now?  Though what there was
to boast on, they couldn't tell.  Cissy
wasn't a lady, and wouldn't never be
made into one, not if she married fifty
vicars!

Mr. Plew had been sent for by the vicar
on the evening before the wedding, and
had had a painful scene with him. Mr.
Levincourt oscillated between haughty
declarations that he owed an account of his
conduct to no man, and that he fully
believed the step he was taking would be
entirely for his happiness, and peevish
lamentations over the misconduct of his
daughter, who had left his home desolate
and disgraced, and thus driven him to find
sympathy and companionship where he
could.

"Have you informed Ve——the Princess
Barletti, sir?"  asked Mr. Plew.

"Informed her!  No, sir, I have not
informed her. I am not bound to ask my
daughter's permission to take what step
I please. She deserves no confidence from
me—none whatever!"

But presently it appeared that the vicar
very much desired that Mr. Plew should
take upon himself the task of
communicating the news to Veronica.

"I promised to write to you," said Mr.
Plew, finishing his recital, in which he had
softened all the points that were likeliest
to give her pain.  "But then came your
letter, and I—I made up my mind to come.
Mr. Brown, of Shipley Magna, promised to
look after my patients for a day or two.
And there is no one else to miss me."

"Then," said Veronica, raising her eyes,
and coming out of a black reverie in which
Mr. Plew's words had but faintly reached
her consciousness, " I am quite alone in
the world now!"

"Don't say that!  Don't say that,
Veronica!  Your husband——"

"My husband!"

The accent with which she uttered the
words was so heartbreaking in its utter
hopeless bitterness, that Mr. Plew was
silent for a moment. What could he oppose
to that despair?  But he presently made a
brave effort to speak again.

"Yes, Veronica, your husband!  If I
cared less for you I should not have the
courage to oppose you. But I must tell
you, I must urge you to consider well that
your husband is your natural friend and
protector. No one can come between you
and him.  It cannot be that reconciliation
is hopeless.  You are both young.  He
loves you.  He seemed gentle and—— "

She burst out into a storm of passionate
tears.

"Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?
  No one will believe me! no one will
understand!  Did you read my letter?  I ask,
did you read it?  Gentle! yes, he is very
gentle!  Oh, very, very gentle!  As velvet-
footed as a tiger-cat!  Would you like to
see the mark of his claws?"

With a sudden fierce movement she tore
open the long lace sleeve that she wore, and
bared her arm to the shoulder. There were
on the white, tender flesh two livid marks
made by the brutal pressure of a clasping
hand.

"Good God! you did not say— you did
not tell me that he struck you!"

Mr. Plew's white face grew livid, and
then turned crimson. He clenched his hand
involuntarily.

"Oh no!  He did not strike me!  He
merely held me down in my chair with
gentle violence, endeavouring to make me
promise to receive a woman whom he
desired to invite, and who had openly
insulted me. I cried out with the pain, but