Within a month of this interview there was a quiet wedding at the little Berkshire church, in whose gloomy vault poor Emily Jerningham slumbered--a ceremonial at which Daniel Mayfield shone radiant in an expansive white waist-coat, and with moustache of freshest Tyrian dye. Theodore de Bergerac gave his daughter to her husband; while Harold Jerningham stood by, satisfied with his new _rôle_ of spectator. The bride and bridegroom began their honeymoon in a very unpretentious manner in pleasant lodgings in Folkestone; but one day the bride ventured to suggest that Folkestone was a place of which it was possible for the human mind to grow weary. “If you would only take me to Switzerland?” Helen pleaded, with her sweetest smile. “My dear love, you forget that, although the most fortunate of created beings, we are, from the Continental innkeeper’s point of view, actual paupers.” “Not quite, dear! There was one little circumstance that no one thought it worth while to mention before our marriage; but perhaps it would be as well for you to be informed of it now.” She handed to him a paper, of a legal and alarming appearance. It was a deed of gift, whereby Harold Jerningham, on the one part, bestowed upon Helen de Bergerac, the daughter of his very dear friend, Theodore de Bergerac, for the other part, funded property producing something over three thousand a year. “Good heavens! he has cheated me after all!” cried Eustace. “He told us the story of your birth, dear; his own remorse, and your noble repudiation of all gifts from him. And then he entreated me to let some benefit from his wealth come to you indirectly through me.” Another wedding, as quiet as the simple ceremony in Berkshire, took place just twelve months after Mrs. Jerningham’s death. For a year Lucy Alford had lived very quietly among her new friends at Harrow, receiving sometimes a package of new books, and a brief, friendly note, from the editor of the _Areopagus_, for the sole token that she was not utterly forgotten by him. But one day he paid an unexpected visit to the Harrow Parsonage, and finding Miss Alford alone in the pretty garden, asked her to be his wife. Few words were needed for his prayer. The sweet face, with its maiden blushes and downcast eyelids, told him that he was still beloved, still the dearest, and wisest, and greatest of earthly creatures in the sight of Lucy Alford. While Eustace and his young wife wander, happy as children, amidst Alpine mountains and by the margin of Alpine lakes, Harold Jerningham schemes for his son’s future. “He shall have the Park Lane house, and go into Parliament,” resolves the father. “All my old ambitions shall revive in him.” But scheme as he may, there is always the bitter taste of the ashes which remain for the man who has plucked the Dead-Sea apples that hang ripe and red above the path of life. THE END. J. Ogden and Co., Printers, 172, St. John Street, E.C.