Rosamund’s marriage was set for the end of May. There had been great preparations for the event, which was to be the most brilliant one of its kind that had ever taken place in the town or state. A costly trousseau had been ordered from San Francisco. It was understood that the wedding breakfast was to come from the same place and be the most sumptuous and elaborate ever given in Virginia. Men heard these rumors with surprise and once more wondered where Allen was getting the money “to splurge with.” Even the astute Graceys were puzzled. Only the Colonel was non-committal and looked on quietly. “Rosamund’s going to have the finest send-off I can give her,” Allen said to him a week before the wedding. “It’s the best I can do for her. It’s a good thing Harrower’s only here for a few days.” The Colonel felt like adding it was an extremely good thing, as otherwise Harrower might be called upon to pay for the splendor of his own nuptials. Twenty-five thousand dollars would not go far with a man, who, with debts pressing on every side, was spending money as Allen was in giving Rosamund a fine “send-off.” A week before the day set Harrower arrived and took up his residence at the International Hotel. It was a feverish, over-crowded week, full of bustle and fussy excitement. There were people constantly at the Murchison mansion and Allen was constantly out of it. Had Harrower been more versed in the ways of the American parent he would have realized that his future father-in-law was avoiding him. But the young man, who thought everything in the place curious and more or less incomprehensible, regarded his behavior as merely another evidence of the American father’s habit of letting his children manage their own affairs. He did not like Allen and wanted as quickly as possible to get through the spectacular marriage, and take Rosamund away to the peace of his ancestral acres and the simple country life they both loved. To June this last week was a whirl of days and nights, reeling by over a dragging, ceaseless sense of pain. To both girls the separation was bitter, but Rosamund, passing into the arms of an adored husband, for the first time in a life of unselfishness, did not enter into her sister’s feelings. She spoke often of the visit June was to pay them next winter. Lionel was as anxious as Rosamund for her to come. The bride and groom were to travel on the continent for part of the summer and then visit his people, introducing Rosamund to her new relations. But by November they would be settled in Monk’s Court--that was Lionel’s home--and then June was to come. Rosamund even hinted at a cousin of Lionel’s, a “very decent chap” Lionel had said, who was rich and single and “just the right sort for June.” There were six months between now and then, six short months to Rosamund beginning a brilliant new life with her lover; and six long months to June alone in the mining city, surrounded by the gray desert.