"If you had fixed the date a day later," he confided to Derrick, as he helped him into the regulation frock coat, and impressed upon him the solemn fact that the wedding ring was in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, "you'd have had to find another best man; for Susie and I are going to be married to-morrow at a quiet little church not a hundred miles from here. Ours is going to be really a quiet wedding: bride and bridegroom; parson, pew-opener and perhaps two sniffling children. We are going straight to France; address uncertain. And we're going to live there--that's one of the advantages of my profession, one of the precious few advantages; you can carry it on anywhere." "I'm glad," said Derrick, as he wrung Reggie's hand. "No wonder you look so happy to-day: and I thought it was on my account!" "So it is--partly," said Reggie. "You see, you're filling the bill so eminently satisfactorily. Between you and me, it isn't often that the hero in real life--in real life and out of fiction, mind you!--finishes up the last chapter looking absurdly happy in a frock coat and lavender trousers. You're the most satisfying 'hero' I've ever met with. And as to the bride--well, you wouldn't be married this morning, old chap, if I sat down right here and told you what I think of her." "But you've told me already," said Derrick, laying his hand on Reggie's shoulder and shaking him affectionately. To Lady Gridborough's intense satisfaction and delight, the sun shone brightly on Celia who, as the oldest inhabitant declared, was the most beautiful bride that had ever stood before the altar of the old church. One wedding is monotonously similar to another; and on this occasion there was nothing to distinguish Derrick's and Celia's, save the fact that the bridegroom had only just been acquitted of a criminal charge and had been discovered to be the heir to a marquisate; but the crowd which filled the church and gathered outside, felt these facts to be important ones, and they cheered the bride and bridegroom as they emerged from the church, husband and wife. In the circumstances, it was not possible that there should be any festivities at the Hall--they would come later, all felt, when the happy couple returned from their honeymoon. There was an affecting scene when Derrick and Celia stood beside the bed of the injured man. But as he took Derrick's hand, and signed to Celia to bend down that he might kiss her, there was, plainly, an expression of relief in the dying man's wasted face. The great wrong had been set right; the elder brother restored to his own, his son, this handsome, erect young fellow, with the frank and honest eyes, established, or on the way to being established, as the heir.