When he exclaimed, O that cursed marriage! Chrissy held down her head and sighed and wept and murmured out some pathetic words of Thomas Moore’s about forgiveness. She had rehearsed this point before Mrs. Dibble’s glass, and had committed the words to memory for the purpose a week previously. She knew that Paul could not marry her because she was Crawley’s wife; she knew that a divorce was a serious business, and that it might lead to the exposure of her real history. So she had resolved, the first week she was in Paul’s care, that when she was once firmly secure of his love, she would make a pathetic confession of being single, and then fall at his feet and implore his forgiveness. How cleverly she did this it is unnecessary to say. It was a splendid success; the confession jumped so well with the Lieutenant’s wishes that he blotted out the past at once, forgave her, and in his blind mad fashion felt perfectly happy. He went to his quarters that night determined to exchange into a regiment that was abroad or going abroad, and marry this poor girl, who had been so wronged, and who had knelt at his feet until his heart ached for her, and whose future happiness he vowed should be his continual care. Mrs. Dibble had told dear Chrissy that she expected her husband coming to spend a day with them in the course of a fortnight; and as the chatty, old woman had told dear Chrissy how she had found poor Thomas with a set of nasty, dirty show people, dear Chrissy thought it best to bring her grand scheme of a new start in life to an early conclusion. O, how she would love to go to India or anywhere beyond the seas, where she could begin her life anew, and prove to her dear, dear Paul, the depth of woman’s gratitude and love! CHAPTER XIX. “THE COMING EVENT.” The preparations for the marriage of Lord Verner to Miss Tallant gradually drew towards completion, and the fashionable world was all agog at the event. The newspapers had published all kinds of piquant paragraphs about the beauty of the bride, her great wealth, the nobility of her birth, and the immense riches of the bridegroom. Introduced by the popular gossip-preface _on dit_, the _Court Journal_ and _Court Circular_ had fairly vied with each other in racy scraps about Montem Castle and Barton Hall. A journal devoted to the fine arts had made the discovery that many of the landscapes by the now famous artist, Arthur Phillips, were copies of the glorious scenery in that beautiful valley of Avonworth where Barton Hall was situated.