“Yes. Did you suspect anything?” “I thought there was an understanding between them.” “They went off together early this morning; walked five miles to the station, leaving their luggage to be looked after by the Major’s servant, who had received his instructions and who got everything packed and off by the one o’clock train for London. I got this telegram late in the afternoon from Salisbury.” She handed him a telegram, which he read slowly, word by word, and then he slowly folded it and restored it to his visitor, in heart-stricken silence. The telegram was in these words:— “To LADY BURDENSHAW, MEDLOW COURT,— “Major Swanwick and I were married at two o’clock, before the Registrar. We start for Monte Carlo to-night. Please break it to Harrington, and forgive me for going away without telling you. We thought it better to avoid fuss. “Yours lovingly, “JULIET SWANWICK.” “God help this infatuated girl,” said Lady Burdenshaw. “She has married a scoundrel who is up to his eyebrows in debt. He behaved brutally to his first wife, and he is not very likely to treat this one any better. I’m very sorry I ever had them in my house together. He was an old flame, and he had lost her more than one good match by his equivocal attentions. As for you, my dear young fellow, I congratulate you upon a very lucky escape.” Harrington put his hand before his eyes to hide the tears of mortification and wounded love. Yet, even while the sense of disappointment was keenest, he had a feeling that Lady Burdenshaw was right, and that he had escaped a lifelong martyrdom. How could he, with his limited means, have ever satisfied a woman who lived only for pleasure and excitement, dress and dissipation? Juliet had been very frank with him during their brief courtship, and he had seen enough of her character to know that this splendid creature was not of the stuff that makes a good wife for a professional man with his struggles all before him. He was sorry, he was angry, he was wounded to the quick; but in the midst of it all he felt that there was a burden lifted off his mind and off his life—that he could breathe more freely, that he was no longer overweighted in the race. Lady Burdenshaw stopped with him for an hour, and told him a good many small facts to his charmer’s discredit, although he begged her more than once to desist. It was her only idea of comforting him, and it may be that her efforts were not misdirected. He was surprised on the following afternoon by a visit from his father, who was not satisfied with Lady Burdenshaw’s report of his condition. Touched by this evidence of paternal affection, the young man took heart of grace and made a full confession—first of his engagement, and next of his pecuniary obligations—the acceptance so soon to fall due, the twenty pounds borrowed from Hayfield. “I can pay that very easily out of my allowance,” he said; “I only tell you about it to show what a mean hound I was becoming.”