Marie Sarradet's decision had been hastened by a train of events and circumstances which might have been devised expressly to precipitate the issue. The chain started with a letter from Mrs. Veltheim, in which the good lady announced her intention of paying her brother a visit. Mr. Sarradet was nothing loth; he was still poorly, and thought his sister's company and conversation would cheer him up. Marie took a radically opposite view. She knew Aunt Louisa! A persevering bloodhound she was! Once her nose was on the trail, she never gave up. Her nose had scented Arthur Lisle's attentions; she would want to know what had become of them and of him—when, and why, and whither they had taken themselves off. The question arose then—how to evade Aunt Louisa?

It was answered pat—fortune favours the brave, and Sidney Barslow was, both in love and in war, audacious—by a letter from that gentleman. For ten days he and Raymond had walked hard from place to place. Now they proposed to make their headquarters at Bettws-y-Coed for the rest of the trip. "It's done Raymond simply no end of good. He'll be another man by the time we come back. You must want a change too! Why not come down and join us for ten days, and see if Amabel won't come with you? I believe she would. We'd have a rare time—Snowdon, and Beddgelert, and the Hound, and all the rest of it. This is a very romantic spot, with a picturesque stream and surrounded by luxuriantly wooded cliffs and hills——"

Hullo! That was odd from Sidney Barslow, and must have cost him no small effort!

Marie smiled over the effusion. "Oh, he got it out of the guide-book!" she reflected. But it was very significant of what Sidney thought appropriate to his situation.

She mentioned the plan to the old man. He was eager in its favour. The more his own vigour waned, the more he held out his arms to the strong man who had saved his son and who seemed sent by heaven to save his business. To him he would give his daughter with joy and confidence. That the great end of marriages was to help family fortunes was an idea no less deeply enrooted in his bourgeois blood than in the august veins of the House of Austria itself. In favouring a match with Arthur Lisle he had not departed from it; at that time the only thing the family had seemed to lack was gentility—which Arthur would supply. But what was gentility beside solvency? He had been compelled to sell securities! He was all for a man of business now.

"Go, my dear, and take Amabel with you, if she'll go. I'll stand treat for both of you."

In spite of those vanished securities! "Pops is keen!" thought Marie, smiling to herself.

And naturally Miss Amabel, though she was careful to convey that the jaunt committed her to nothing, was not going to refuse a free holiday combined with a situation of some romantic interest: not too many of either came her way in life!

Off the girls went, full of glee, and a fine time they had. They found the young men bronzed to a masculine comeliness, teeming with masculine vigour, pleasantly arrogant over the physical strength of the male animal. Little Raymond strutted like a bantam cock. Where was the trembling nerveless creature whom Sidney Barslow had brought back to Regent's Park? Sidney himself was magnificent—like a hunter in prime condition; his flesh all turned to muscle, and his bold eager eyes clear as a child's. What a leader of their expeditions! "Take the train up Snowdon? Not much! I'll carry anybody who gets tired!" he laughed, and in very truth he could have done it. A mighty fellow, glorying in the strong life within him!

He seemed splendid to Amabel. How should he not? Here was a man worthy of her dearly admired Marie. Raymond was privy to his hopes and favoured them, first from admiration and gratitude, next because he knew his father's purpose, and had his own pride to save. He was not to be left in charge of the business. To be postponed to a stranger in blood would be a slur on him in the eyes of his friends and of the staff. But to a brother-in-law, his senior in age and experience—that would not be half so bad! Besides he honestly wished to keep his preserver at hand in case of need, ready to save him again on occasion; and he was shrewd enough to discern why Sidney had taken so much pains over his salvation. Father, friend, and brother were all of one mind. A chorus of joy and congratulation, of praises for her wisdom, awaited Marie's decision, if it were the right one. In the other event, the best to be hoped for was that affection should hide, more or less completely, a bitter disappointment, an unuttered charge of indifference to the wishes and the interests of those she loved.

Here were valuable allies for Sidney, for in Marie too the sense of family solidarity was strong. The Welsh trip came as an added godsend to him, showing him to the greatest advantage, setting her being astir and shaking her out of her staidness. But in the end he owed most to his resolution and his confidence, to the very simplicity of his view of the matter. How could a fine girl like her refuse a fine man like him? When it came to the point—as soon it should—surely she couldn't do it! She smiled, she was amused, she teased him; but her secret visions were always of surrender and acceptance and, following on them, of a great peace, a transfer of all her cares and troubles to shoulders infinitely powerful.

He thought her romantic; he chose for his moment a moonlight evening, for his scene the old bridge—the Pont-y-Pair. He led her there after dinner, two nights before they were to go back to London. She guessed his purpose; his air was one of determination. She stood looking down into the water, intensely conscious of his presence, though for some minutes he smoked in silence. Indeed the whole place seemed full of his masterful personality; she grew a little afraid. He knocked out his pipe on the parapet of the bridge; some glowing ashes twinkled down to the water and were quenched. She felt her heart beat quick as he put the pipe in his pocket.

"Marie!"

"Yes."

"Come, won't you even look at me?"

She had no power to disobey; she turned her face slowly towards his, though otherwise she did not move.

"Do you like me?"

"Of course I like you, Sidney. You know that."

"Anything more?" Her hands were clasped in front of her, resting on the parapet. He put out his great right hand and covered them. "I love you, Marie. I want you to be my wife."

She turned her face away again; she was trembling, not with fear, but with excitement. She felt his arm about her waist. Then she heard his voice in a low exultant whisper, "You love me, Marie!" It was not a question. She leant back against the strong arm that encircled her. Then his kiss was on her lips.

"But I've never even said 'yes,'" she protested, trembling and laughing.

"I'm saying it for you," he answered in jovial triumph.

"Take me back to the hotel, please, Sidney," she whispered.

"Not a walk first?" He was disappointed.

"As much as you like to-morrow!"

He yielded and took her back. There she fled from him to her own room, but came back in half-an-hour, serene and smiling, to receive praise and embraces from brother and friend. She had thrown herself on her bed and lain there, on her back, very still save for her quick breathing, her eyes very bright—like a captured animal awaiting what treatment it knows not. Only by degrees did she recover calm; with it came the peace of her visions—the sense of the strong right arm encircling and shielding her. The idea that she could ever of her own will, aye, or of her own strength, thrust it away seemed now impossible. If ever woman in the world had a fate foreordained, hers was here!

But Sidney had no thought of fate. By his own right hand and his powerful arm he had gained the victory.

"If you'd told me three or four months ago that I should bring this off, I'd never have believed you," he told Raymond as they rejoiced together over whisky-and-soda, the first they had allowed themselves since they started on the trip. "Never say die! That's the moral. I thought I was done once, though." He screwed up his mouth over the recollection of that quarrel at the tennis courts. "But I got back again all right. It just shows!"

He forgot wherein he was most indebted to fortune, as his present companion might have reminded him. But strong men treat fortune as they treat their fellow-creatures; they use her to their best advantage and take to themselves the credit. The admiring world is content to have it so, and Raymond Sarradet was well content.

"I did think she had a bit of a fancy for that chap Arthur Lisle once," he remarked.

"Well, I thought so too. But, looking back, I don't believe it." He smiled the smile of knowledge and experience. "The best of girls have their little tricks, Raymond, my boy! I don't believe she had, but I fancy she didn't mind my thinking that she had. Do you twig what I mean, old fellow?"

This reading of the past in the light of the present commended itself to both of them.

"Oh, they want tackling, that's what they want!" Sidney told his admiring young companion.

The girls shared a room, and upstairs Amabel was chirping round Marie's bed, perching on it, hopping off it, twittering like an excited canary. What would everybody say—Mr. Sarradet, Mildred, Joe Halliday? The event was calculated to stir even the Olympian melancholy of Claud Beverley! Here too there was an echo of the past—"And Mr. Arthur Lisle can put it in his pipe and smoke it!" she ended, rather viciously. Her loyalty to Marie had never forgiven Arthur for his back-sliding.

"You silly!" said Marie in indulgent reproof. "As if Mr. Lisle would care! He thinks of nobody but his cousin—Mrs. Godfrey Lisle, I mean, you know."

"He did think about somebody else once," nodded Amabel. "Oh, you can't tell me, Marie! But I suppose Mrs. Lisle has turned his head. Well, she is sweetly pretty, and very nice."

"I expect he's quite as fond of her as he ought to be, at all events," smiled Marie.

"Rather romantic, isn't it? Like Paolo! Don't you remember how lovely Paolo was?"

"But Mr. Lisle isn't a bit like that. Still, nobody could have a chance against her." Marie's tone was impartial, impersonal, not at all resentful. Sidney Barslow's triumphant march swept all obstacles from his path, even the guerilla attack of insurgent memories. They could not cause delay or loss; the sputter of their harmless fire rather added a zest. "He was very attractive in his way," she reflected with a smile. "And I really do believe—no, I musn't tell you!"

And in the end she did not. She had, however, said enough to account for Amabel's exclamation of "Well, it's a blessing you didn't! I like Arthur Lisle, but to compare him with Sidney!"

"I've got what I want, anyhow," said Marie, with a luxurious nestling-down on her pillow. "How are you and Raymond getting on?" she added with a laugh.

"Marie, as if I should think of it, as if I should let him say a word, oh, for ever so long! One can't be too careful!"

"But you mustn't make too much of it. He was very young and—and ignorant."

"He's not so ignorant now," Amabel remarked drily.

"Sidney'll keep him in order. You may depend upon that. You see, he can't fool Sidney. He knows too much. He'd know in a minute if Raymond was up to anything."

"Oh, that does make it much safer, of course. Still——" She broke into a giggle—"Perhaps he won't want it after all, Marie!"

"Oh yes, he will, you goose!" said Marie. And so they chattered on till the clock struck midnight.

When Arthur, returned from Malvern, came to congratulate Marie, he found her in a blaze of family glory, the reward of the girl who has done the wise thing and is content with it, who, feeling herself happy in wisdom, enables everybody else to feel comfortable. Old Mr. Sarradet even seemed grateful to Arthur himself for not having deprived him prematurely of a daughter who had developed into such a valuable asset, and been ultimately disposed of to so much greater advantage; at least some warrant for this impression might be found in the mixture of extreme friendliness and sly banter with which he entertained the visitor until Marie made her appearance. As soon as she came, she managed to get rid of her father very promptly; she felt instinctively that the triumphant note was out of place.

Yet she could not hide the great contentment which possessed her; native sincerity made such concealment impossible. Arthur saw her enviable state and, while he smiled, honestly rejoiced. The old sense of comradeship revived in him; he remembered how much happiness he had owed her. The last silly remnant of condescending surprise at her choice vanished.

"It does one good to see you so happy," he declared. "I bask in the rays, Marie!"

"I hope you'll often come and bask—afterwards."

"I will, if you'll let me. We must go on being friends. I want to be better friends with Sidney."

She smiled rather significantly. Arthur laughed. "Oh, that's all over long ago—I was an ass! I mean I want really to know him better."

"He'll be very pleased, though he's still a little afraid of you, I expect. He has improved very much, you know. He's so much more—well, responsible. And think what he's done for us!"

"I know. Joe told me. And he's going into the business?"

"He's going to be the business, I think," she answered, laughing.

"Splendid! And here am I, still a waster! I must get Sidney to reform me too, I think."

"I don't know about that. I expect nobody's allowed to interfere with you!" She smiled roguishly and asked in banter, "How is the wonderful cousin? You've been staying with her, haven't you?"

Arthur started; the smile left his face. The question was like a sudden blow to him. But of course Marie knew nothing of the disaster; she imagined him to be still happily and gaily adoring. She would know soon, though—all the world would; she would read the hard ugly fact in the papers, or hear of it in unkind gossip.

"Of course you haven't heard. There's been trouble. She's left us. She's gone away."

For the first time the Christian name by which she thought of him passed her lips in her eagerness of sympathy: "Arthur!"

"Yes, about a month ago now. You remember the man she was lunching with that day—Oliver Wyse? He's taken her away."

"Oh, but how terrible! Forgive me for—for——!"

"There's nothing to forgive. You couldn't know. But it'll be common property soon. You—you mustn't think too badly of her, Marie."

But Marie came of a stock that holds by the domestic virtues—for women, at all events. She said nothing; she pursed up her lips ominously. Was she too going to talk about 'the unfortunate woman'? No, she was surely too just to dispose of the matter in that summary fashion! If she understood, she would do justice. The old desire for her sympathy revived in him—for sympathy of mind; he wanted her to look at the affair as he did. To that end she must know more of Bernadette, more of Godfrey and of Oliver Wyse—things that the world at large would never know, though the circle of immediate friends might be well enough aware of them. He tried to hint some of these things to her, in rather halting phrases about uncongeniality, want of tastes in common, not 'hitting it off,' and so forth. But Marie was not much disposed to listen. She would not be at pains to understand. Her concern was for her friend.

"I'm only thinking what it must have meant to you—what it must mean," she said. "Because you were so very very fond of her, weren't you? When did you hear of it?"

"I was in the house when it happened."

Now she listened while he told how Bernadette had gone—told all save his own madness.

"And you had to go through that!" Marie murmured.

"I deserved it. I'd made such a fool of myself," he said.

His self-reproach told her enough of his madness; nay, she read into it even more than the truth.

"How could she let you, when she loved another man all the time?" she cried.

"She never thought about me in that way for a moment. And I——" He broke off. He would not tell the exact truth; but neither would he lie to Marie.

She judged the case in its obvious aspect—a flirt cruelly reckless, a young man enticed and deluded.

"I wouldn't have believed it of her! You deserve and you'll get something better than that! Don't waste another thought on her, Arthur."

"Never mind about me. I want you to see how it happened that Bernadette could——"

"Oh, Bernadette!" Her voice rang in scorn over the name. "Will nothing cure you?"

He smiled, though ruefully. This was not now cold condemnation of his old idol; it was a burst of generous indignation over a friend's wrong. Bernadette's treatment of her husband, her child, her vows, was no longer in Marie's mind; it was the usage of her friend. Could the friend be angry at that?

"Time'll cure me, I suppose—as much as I want to be cured," he said. "And you're just the same jolly good friend you always were, Marie. I came to wish you joy, not to whine about myself—only you happened to ask after her, and I couldn't very well hold my tongue about it. Only do remember that, whatever others may have, I have no grievance—no cause of complaint. Anything that's happened to me I brought on myself."

No use! He saw that, and smiled hopelessly over it. Marie was resolved on having him a victim; he had to give in to her. She had got the idea absolutely fixed in that tenacious mind of hers. He turned back to the legitimate purpose of his visit.

"And when is the wedding to be?"

"In about six weeks. You'll come, won't you, Mr. Lisle?"

But Arthur had noticed what she called him, when moved by sympathy. "Don't go back to that. You called me 'Arthur' just now."

"Did I? I didn't notice. But I shall like to call you Arthur, if I may." She gave him her hand with the frankest heartiness. 'Arthur' felt himself established in a simple and cordial friendship; it was not quite the footing on which 'Mr. Lisle' had stood. Hopes and fears, dreams and sentiment, were gone from her thoughts of him; a great goodwill was the residuum.

Perhaps she was generous to give so much, and Arthur lucky to receive it; and perhaps the news of Bernadette's misdeeds made the measure of it greater. Whatever might have been the case previously, it was now plain as day that, in any respect in which Arthur's past conduct needed excuse, he had not really been a free agent. He had been under a delusion, a spell, a wicked domination. Did ever so fair a face hide such villainy?

The tidings of Arthur's tragedy went forth to the Sarradet household and the Sarradet circle. Sidney Barslow heard of it with a decorous sympathy which masked a secret snigger. Amabel twittered over it, with a new reminiscence of her Paolo—only that ended differently! Joe Halliday had strange phrases in abundance, through which he strove to express a Byronic recognition of love's joy and woe. He told Miss Ayesha Layard, and thereby invested handsome Mr. Lisle with a new romantic interest. The story of the unhappy passion and its end, the flight in early morning of the guilty pair, reached even the ears of Mr. Claud Beverley, who sorrowed as a man that such things should happen, and deplored as an artist that they should happen in that way.

"There need have been no trouble. Why weren't they all open and sensible about it?" he demanded of Miss Layard—very incautiously.

"Because there's a B in both—and another in your bonnet, old man," the irrepressible lady answered, to his intense disgust.