The wedding was set for noon, Wednesday. Only two days remained now before the event, and already in the big Beeston house the preparations drew toward completion. The ceremony was to be performed in the library, a spacious, well-lighted room with tall French windows overlooking the terraced garden and the pool beneath the evergreens. Only the family and two or three of their most intimate friends were to be present; and the ceremony had at one time threatened to be even smaller. Incensed at the turn affairs had taken, David's parents had at first declined to lend their presence. Beeston, however, had attended to this. He had, indeed, attended to almost every detail. Meanwhile, with Miss Elvira to aid, Bab made ready.

It would be difficult to describe her sensations. After her interview in the hall with Beeston a dull apathy seemed to have settled over her. Beeston's threat had proved efficacious. Bab had given in to him, for there had seemed nothing else to do. She had not, however, struck her colors weakly. The conflict with Beeston had been a long one, and it was only when she had no strength left to fight on that she capitulated. Beeston's triumph was complete.

His had been a clever stroke of diplomacy. Machiavelli himself could not have done better. Bab he might have threatened until doomsday, and she would have scoffed at him. For herself she had no fear of him, and Beeston knew it. Therefore, with an ingenious understanding of the situation, he had used the one possible means to bring her to her knees. Her heart like lead, she had gone back to her room upstairs. There the things still lay helter-skelter on her bed. Among them was Beeston's pearl. David's ring also was there. She was gazing at it hollow-eyed when a sound at the door came to her. Beeston had followed her. He stood for a moment in the doorway, gazing at the room's disorder, and then a lurking smile had lighted up his eyes. He had seen the ring, and that he knew who had given it to her was evident. Pointing to it with his stick, he grunted, and the grunt was almost friendly. The victor, it proved, meant to be kindly with the vanquished.

"You put that ring on again," he begged rather than directed. Then he had stared at her, his eyes softening. "You understand, don't you?" he appealed. "You won't say anything to David to kill his happiness!"

Bab understood, and she gave Beeston her promise. Then she put on David's ring. It seemed to her to symbolize her submission. David, the morning after, cried out as he saw it on her finger. Then he had tried impulsively to draw Bab into his arms; but she quietly released herself.

"Wait, David—not now," she begged. Then she had looked up at him with a brave little smile. "I'm very tired. Let me have these next few days to myself, won't you?"

Humbly he had withdrawn, his face clouded sensitively. Again he had been too rough, too clumsy, he told himself.

How swiftly the next few days sped by only Bab could have said. Two days only now were left—forty-eight hours in all. This knowledge, even in her apathy, gave her a creeping dread. Her mind dwelt on the women she knew—girls, some of them—whom she had seen marry, not for love but for money. Had they, too, felt that dread? Or had the jingling of the coin stilled the hurt their honor felt? Bab often wondered.

The Beeston motors were busy vehicles those last few days at Byewolde. Promptly at nine every morning, if it were fair, Beeston's big imported touring car rolled round to the door. If it rained, as once or twice it did, the limousine was there. Then, whatever the weather, Bab and Miss Elvira appeared promptly, and an hour later they were in town.

Bab had carte blanche to select what she wished for her trousseau. She was to spend what she liked. Miss Elvira in this assisted ably. Said she one morning: "I've never had a trousseau—which is no fault of mine! But there's this about it; if ever you're going to have your fling, have it now. I've never got over thinking how much I must have missed!"

Whether Miss Elvira knew what had occurred between Bab and her brother, Bab had no way of telling. That she knew of the fraud, however, was evident, though it seemed to make scant change in her demeanor. She was fond of Bab; and once fond of anyone, Miss Elvira was not the sort to change easily. Once, as they drove home through the dusk, Miss Elvira of a sudden had laid a hand on Bab's. Her craggy features for a moment were transfigured with a light Bab never before had seen there.

"I understand; I know, my child," she said, her voice suddenly thick. "Take courage, can't you?" Then she had gazed at Bab with a look of timid appeal. "Love him," she whispered. "Oh, my child, love David, won't you?" Though she did not answer, Bab's eyes had grown moist.

Laces, linens, embroideries—all by the dozen, by the box—that week came pouring into Byewolde. With conflicting, curious emotions Bab bought things and had them sent home. There were dresses, too, and wraps of all sorts. There were boxes of gloves, boxes of silk stockings, dainty bundles of lingerie. With all these things added to what she had already, her rooms were filled to overflowing. Bab, in spite of herself, felt her interest reawaken. The things were charming, the daintiest and the finest that could be bought. The result was that before long she began to have a pride in these fast-accumulating possessions. What interested her most of all was the linen, much of which there had even been time to embroider with her monogram. She saw herself, in the years to come, established in the life she already had learned to love. Money, luxury, power—all these had come to make their insidious appeal. The balm of dollars! The healing hyssop of ease! She did not love David, but some day he would have millions! Again she heard that inner, unacknowledged voice whisper to her conscience. She must live the life she'd accepted! There was no escape from it. So why not take David and all David offered, and be happy? To be sure, she was marrying neither for wealth nor for place, but because she had to. Just the same, if wealth, if place, were offered with the marriage, why not take them?

Ten o'clock had just struck. A half-hour before this, Bab, pleading fatigue, had excused herself downstairs and, slipping up to her bedroom, had exchanged her dinner dress for a dressing gown. Her animation had for the moment revived. Humming lightly to herself, she was occupying her leisure by going over and rearranging the day's batch of purchases when her maid entered the room.

"What is it, Mawson?" Bab asked.

"Another parcel, miss."

Bab glanced at the clock. She was astonished to receive anything at that hour.

"For me?" she exclaimed.

"It's a present, I think," volunteered the maid. "A man from Mr. Blair's just left it."

At the name Bab colored faintly. She knew, she thought, from whom that present had come. Since she had last seen Linda Blair a week had passed, yet Bab in that time had not forgotten a word of their interview. Silently she took the parcel from the maid. Mawson lingered, busying herself with the litter of paper, string and cardboard boxes on the floor. Bab gazed at the parcel in her hand, then as irresolutely she glanced at the Englishwoman.

"Never mind that, Mawson," she directed. "I'll ring when I need you."

When the maid had departed Bab slowly undid the wrappings. For years Linda had been the intimate companion, the playmate, of David, and Bab was curious to see now what sort of a wedding gift Linda would make the girl her friend was to marry. Linda she had always liked. In her loneliness now she wished she had been able to make Linda her friend. There was something substantial about her. She was a person, Bab knew, one could rely upon in a crisis.

There was a cardboard box inside the paper. Bab opened it. Then, as her eyes fell on what was within, her face underwent a curious transformation. She could have laughed, but in her heart was no merriment. It had needed but a glance at the gift she had received to show her clearly the attitude of the sender. Indifference Linda could not have expressed more clearly. She had sent Bab a small silver bonbon dish and, considering all the means at her disposal, she could hardly have selected anything less personal, less friendly and intimate. The gift was costly enough. It was its significance that hurt Bab—the evident apathy it showed on the part of the giver.

The reason for that apathy Bab knew only too well.

"Why are you marrying David?" Linda had inquired. Why, indeed? And if Linda were to hear the whole truth, what would she think then? What would she say were she able to read Bab's mind—to see that David's wealth had become a balm to cure Bab's wounded spirit?

The silver bonbon dish slid unheeded to the floor, and for a long time she sat looking straight before her with eyes that now saw nothing of all the beautiful things that a few moments before had filled her thoughts. Then slowly she rose to her feet and began pacing the bedroom to and fro. She herself had once called Varick a fortune hunter; to think how the tables had now been turned on her. It wasn't true, of course, that she was marrying for money; but how would the world know that? She could not tell people she had married to save Mr. Mapleson from jail. If she did she would have to tell also the truth about herself. Her tongue was tied. She could not even defend herself. She must let the world think that she was like all those other women who had taken men just for their money. And Varick would think that too!

Here a dry sob broke from her. Flinging herself upon the piled-up mass of finery on her bed she lay, her face hidden among the pillows. If only he could know! If only once before her marriage she could see him, tell him the truth. She could not bear to have him think she had given herself for the money. But it was too late now. That afternoon, there in the road when she had left him, she knew he had finished with her. The look in his face had been enough to tell her that. At the thought a new despair came to her and the unutterable loneliness of her plight came over her anew. Everyone had left her, it seemed—everyone! Part of her bargain with Beeston was that she should renounce even those who had loved her. Varick was not the only one. She must not even see poor little Mr. Mapleson.

Then, surging over her again and drowning out all other thoughts, came the remembrance that in two days now she was to marry a man she did not love!

Her mistress not having rung for her, at half-past eleven Mawson of her own accord tapped at the sitting-room door. There being no answer, she tapped at the bedroom door. Still getting no response, she opened the door and stepped in. The room was vacant, and in the center of the floor Bab's dressing gown lay in a heap. Beside it, too, were the mauve silk stockings and satin slippers that she had worn down to dinner. But Bab, it seemed, had vanished.