Enter two fashionable ladies with a cavalier in tow. Reginald evidently found favour in the eyes of one of them; he had the unmistakable air of a man of birth and distinction. She therefore proceeded to make herself most agreeable, and put him through a series of animated questions, giving him a pretty good benefit of her eyes all the time. Alice, looking on, felt indignation burn within her; and yet, why should she mind? he was nothing to her! He had destroyed her life, as far as her happiness went. All she valued was gone. Bravely indeed did she try to sustain a share of conversation, and to keep up appearances to the best of her ability. She knew she was answering the strange young man’s remarks at random, but she could not help it. He was looking intensely puzzled, as well he might, when she told him that “she was staying in _India_, but had come over to Southsea for two or three days.” Oh, if she could only get out of the room! No sooner thought than done. She was gliding quietly towards the door, when her husband with two steps confronted her. “Alice,” said he, “I wish to speak to you particularly. Can you come out with me and take a turn on the pier?” Alice bowed her head in assent, and passed on. When she came down in her walking things--close-fitting velvet paletôt trimmed with superb sable, and cap to match--she found him waiting in the hall. Having ceremoniously opened the door for her, they set out, and walked on rapidly, exchanging the veriest commonplaces. The pier was evidently to be the scene of action, so Alice braced up all her nerve for the encounter, and firmly determined to abide by Miss Fane’s advice, and not yield an inch till the certificate was utterly refuted. No one meeting them would have guessed at the storm that was raging in their hearts. They did not look like married people, nor lovers certainly. “A young fellow taking his very pretty sister for a walk, most likely,” would have been the verdict of a passer-by. Arrived at the pier, Alice summoned up all her courage, and taking a good long breath and a firm grasp of her umbrella, said, with apparent composure: “Now what have you to say to me?” “Several things as your husband, and a few as your guardian,” he replied, leaning against the railing and looking at her intently. “Say nothing to me as my husband, but whatever you have to say as my guardian I will perhaps attend to.” “Then you still entertain the monstrous notion--that I am _not_ your husband?” To this question Alice made no reply, and he proceeded. “Well, I _am_, all the same. But I see it would be a waste of time and temper to endeavour to persuade you otherwise. I have every reason to believe that within the next two months all will be satisfactorily cleared up. May I ask what you will do in that case?” “I will return to you as your wife, of course,” she replied calmly.