The days drew near to the wedding. Had he had his way he would have married her, off-hand, when he found her in the top attic in that Chelsea slum. But she said no. Then she would not even talk of marriage. To hear her, one would have thought that the trials she had undergone had unfitted her for wedded life. He laughed her out of that--a day was fixed. She postponed it once, and then again. She had it that she needed time to recuperate--that she would not marry with the shadow of that grisly past still haunting her at night. He argued that the royal road to recuperation was in his arms. He declared that she would be troubled by no haunting shadows as his dear wife. And, at last, she yielded. A final date was fixed. That day drew near. As the day drew near, she grew more tender. On the night before the wedding-day her tenderness reached, as it were, its culminating point. Never before had she been so sweet--so softly caressing. They were but to part for a few short hours. In the morning they were to meet, never, perhaps, to part again. But it seemed as if he could not tear himself away, and as if she could not let him go. Just before he left her a little dialogue took place between them, which if lover-like, none the less was curious. "Tom" she said, "suppose, after we are married, you should find out that I have not been so good as you thought, what would you say?" "Say?--nothing." "Oh yes, you would, else you would be less than man. Suppose, for instance, that you found out I had deceived you." "I decline to suppose impossibilities." She had been circled by his arms. Now she drew herself away from him. She stood where the gaslight fell right on her. "Tom, look at me carefully! Are you sure you know me?" "Nelly!" "Are you quite sure you are not mistaking me for some one else? Are you quite sure, Tom?" "My own!" He took her in his arms again. As he did so, she looked him steadfastly in the face. "Tom, I think it possible that, some day, you may think less of me than you do now. But"--she put her hand over his mouth to stop his speaking--"whatever you may think of me, I shall always love you"--there was an appreciable pause, and an appreciable catching of her breath--"better than my life." She kissed him, with unusual abandonment, long and fervently, upon the lips. The morning of the following day came with the promise of fine weather. Theirs had been an unfashionable courtship--it was to be an unfashionable wedding. Mr. Gibbs was to call for his bride, at her lodgings. They were to drive together, in a single hired brougham, to the church. Even before the appointed hour, the expectant bridegroom drew up to the door of the house in which his lady-love resided. His knock was answered with an instant readiness which showed that his arrival had been watched and waited for. The landlady herself opened the door, her countenance big with tidings. "Miss Brock has gone, sir."