It is incredible--I am ashamed of myself when I think of it--but before I got out of that carriage, I actually gave her all the money I had in my purse. To the relief of the Russian Jews, I understood that it was to be devoted at the time, though I am free to admit that she did not make an exact statement of the fact. I did not dare to tell Mrs Beamish what I had done. I have never dared to tell her to this hour. Two nights after Douglas came up to me on the pier. He was beaming with something--possibly with rapture. When he saw me, in the dim light, he rubbed his hands together--in a way he has. "Congratulate me, Beamish! Congratulate me, my dear Beamish." Before I congratulate a man, I like to know what I am expected to congratulate him on. I told him so. He dropped his voice to a sort of confidential whisper. "She has promised to make me happy." "She? Who?" "The Princess Margaretta." He drew himself up. Douglas is a tall, thin man, so perhaps he thought that he would make himself still taller. "The Princess Margaretta, Beamish, that august and most beautiful lady, has, scarcely an hour ago--most auspicious hour of my existence!--promised to be my wife." I was dumbfounded. I could only stare. Douglas is an old Indian Civil. He was Resident of--somewhere or other, I forget the name of the place. The driest old stick I ever yet encountered. As much fitted to be the husband of a fair young creature like the Princess Margaretta as--as I am. "Yes, Beamish, I am to be married at last." And quite time, too, ancient imbecile. I felt inclined to kick him as he stood there, smirking and twiddling his watch-chain. "I have been making matrimonial approaches towards the Princess Margaretta almost since the moment in which she arrived at Beachington. I felt that such a woman as that must be mine, though, at the same time, I scarcely dared to hope. But the Princess is a woman of the widest sympathies. I am inclined to the belief that it is because I have made her sympathies my own that I have made her heart mine also. I presented her this afternoon with a cheque for a thousand guineas to be devoted to a cause in which she is much interested--the relief of the Russian Jews. It was, perhaps, for a person in my circumstances, a rash thing to do. But I do not regret it, for I am persuaded that it was that spontaneous act upon my part which induced her to say 'yes' to my whispered prayers." I moved away from him; I could not congratulate him--I could not! I fancy that he was so lifted up in the seventh heaven of his happiness that he never noticed the omission. On the other side of the pier I came upon Macbride. Macbride is a Yankee--a New England man; as keen and cute, and yet as nice a fellow as you would care to meet. He spends three or four months of every year in England on business, and, during that time, he is continually in and out of Beachington. He was leaning over the railings, looking down at the sea, when I came up to him.