Jim was surprised that the family should wish to keep it so quiet, but as he himself much preferred that method of getting "hitched up" he made no complaint. He drove away with his beautiful bride, feeling that the greatest step in his life had been taken--which was certainly the case. Where that step was to lead him he was fortunately unable to foresee. The attitude of Claude puzzled him. Since that day in Devonshire, when Claude had endeavored to intervene, the latter had spoken scarcely a dozen words to him. He shook hands with Jim at the station and with Angela, but his congratulations sounded weak and insincere. Jim speedily forgot him in the thrill of the moment. Nice was their destination--Nice in all her October glory. He was actually on honeymoon with the object of his dreams and ambitions! This chapter in Jim's life need scarcely be dwelled upon in any detail. It was so amazing, so unexpectedly baffling, that it sent him clean off his pivot of balance. All that marvelous happiness in his heart was shattered little by little. The first night at the hotel at Nice left him pondering. It wasn't due to the fact that Angela occupied a separate room, but that he heard her _turn the key in the lock_! He sat up half the night "browsing" on that singular occurrence. The second night, and every night after, the same thing happened. Nothing else was needed to send him into fits of inward rage. Not for all the wealth of the Indies would he have touched the handle of that door! Verily he was learning. Each day drove home the lesson, until he writhed under the lash of it. He had married an iceberg. He found himself very much alone. In Nice Angela met scores of familiar faces. She spent most of her time with these friends, leaving Jim to the terrible naked truth--to wrestle with it as best he might. He had kissed her at Little Badholme, had apparently thawed for ever the chilly heart of her. But here it was again--the frigid exterior that no kisses could melt. What had happened to her? Was it that she had never cared at all--that her acceptance of his marriage offer was dictated by ulterior motives? Before it was time for them to return to England the last scrap of illusion was knocked out of him. More miserable than ever he had been in his life, he sought for some solution. It was so obvious she didn't care for him. He saw that, in the company of her "high-browed" friends, she despised him. He found himself sitting down under this contempt--meekly accepting the role of enslaved husband, hand-servant to a beautiful and presumably soulless woman. On the night before they left she came back to the hotel very late, to find him sitting in a brown study. He watched her, furtively, discarding the expensive cloak, and taking off the heavy pearl necklace he had been fool enough to buy. He stood up and stared for a moment, in silence, out over the moonlit sea. When he turned she was going to her room. "Angela!"