“Yes, I know what you are going to say, of course I like George very much, but not so much as _he_ likes me. That is always the way; one is saddled and bridled, and the other is booted and spurred--I infinitely prefer the latter _rôle_! Look at Mrs. Malone! Of course _she_ was a fool, but what a life she led. Well, she will be a harmless mother-in-law, that’s one comfort! Only think, Bet, this day week I shall be on the high seas, and this day month I shall probably be Mrs. Holroyd, and you will no longer be Miss Betty, but Miss Redmond. I have promised mother to send a wire, so that it may appear in the papers at once. I always think it looks so well and so important, to see an announcement concluding with ‘By Telegram.’” Mrs. Redmond seemed entirely oblivious of the part she had enacted in the domestic drama, and treated the engagement as if it were quite a _bonâ-fide_ affair, and had possibly brought herself to believe that it was so. She received numerous visitors, to whom she expatiated eloquently on the ancestors, and the acres, of the Holroyds, and the great match Belle was making--to which plain-spoken Miss Dopping had remarked, that it might turn out to be a _Lucifer_ match yet!--and I am truly concerned to add, was disagreeably exultant to the mothers of unmarried daughters. Her conscience was now, so to speak, dead. She had assured it, in its last dying struggles, that she was merely doing evil that good might come. What was a lie? merely an intellectual evasion of a difficulty! She had lied to Belle, boldly and successfully, and were she to confess now, and repair her error, Belle would perhaps end her days in a madhouse. She had only given destiny a little push, that was all! In spite of Dr. Moran’s angry expostulations, Mrs. Redmond made a great effort, and accompanied her daughter to London, saw her on board the _Nankin_ in the Victoria Docks, handed her over to the charge of Colonel and Mrs. Calvert, and then bade her good-bye for ever. Belle hugged her and kissed her many times, and wept herself to the very verge of hysterics, but her tears were dry, and she had smoothed her hair, and changed her hat, and was chatting merrily--long before the _Nankin_ had passed Gravesend. Her day, she told herself, was just rising, and she was resolved to make the most of it, whilst the poor old lady, rumbling back to London in a four-wheeler, and sobbing as if her heart would break, felt that her life was over--she had practically done with existence when she closed the door of Belle’s cabin. CHAPTER XI. “THE UNEXPECTED.” “Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.”