“Well, Caresfoot, you scarcely look like a bridegroom, I must say,” said little Sir John, looking as pleased as though he had made an eminently cheerful remark.

“No, but I am stronger than I look; marriage will cure me.”

“Humph! will it?  Then you will be signally fortunate.”

“Don’t croak, Bellamy.  I am happy to-day—­there is fire dancing along my veins.  Just think, this time to-morrow Angela will be my legal wife!”

“Well, you appear to have given a good price for the privilege, if what Anne tells me is correct.  To sell the Isleworth estates for fifty thousand, is to sell them for a hundred and fifty thousand less than they are worth.  Consequently, the girl costs you a hundred and fifty thousand pounds—­a long figure that for one girl.”

“Bah! you are a cold-blooded fellow, Bellamy.  Can’t you understand that there is a positive delight in ruining oneself for the woman one loves?  And then, think how she will love me, when she comes to understand what she has cost me.  I can see her now.  She will come and kiss me—­mind you, kiss me of her own free will—­and say, ’George, you are a noble fellow; George, you are a lover that any woman may be proud of; no price was too heavy for you.’  Yes, that is what she will say, that sort of thing, you know.”

Sir John’s merry little eye twinkled with inexpressible amusement, and his wife’s full lips curled with unutterable contempt.

“You are counting your kisses before they are paid for,” she said.  “Does Philip come here this afternoon to sign the deeds?”

“Yes; they are in the next room.  Will you come and see them?”

“Yes, I will.  Will you come, John?”

“No, thank you.  I don’t wish to be treated to any more of your ladyship’s omens.  I have long ago washed my hands of the whole business.  I will stop here and read the Times.”

They went out, George leaning on Lady Bellamy’s arm.

No sooner had they gone than Sir John put down the Times, and listened intently.  Then he rose, and slipped the bolt of that door which opened into the hall, thereby halving his chances of interruption.  Next, listening at every step, his round face, which was solemn enough now, stretched forward, and looking for all the world like that of some whiskered puss advancing on a cream-jug, he crept on tiptoe to the iron safe in the corner of the room.  Arrived there, he listened again, and then drew a little key from his pocket, and inserted it in the lock; it turned without difficulty.

“Beau-ti-ful,” murmured Sir John; “but now comes the rub.”  Taking another key, he inserted it in the lock of the subdivision.  It would not turn.  “One more chance,” he said, as he tried a second.  “Ah!” and open came the lid.  Rapidly he extracted two thick bundles of letters.  They were in Lady Bellamy’s handwriting.  Then he relocked the subdivision, and the safe itself, and put the keys away in his trousers and the packets in his coat-tail pockets, one in each, that they might not bulge suspiciously.  Next he unbolted the door, and, returning, gave way to paroxysms of exultation too deep for words.