“I will take her!” said the young duke, smiling.  Then turning to the dowager, he added, gravely:  “Lady Belgrade, this marriage must and shall take place immediately.  You must add your efforts to mine to overcome your niece’s scruples.  Your ladyship has been working against me heretofore.  I hope now, after hearing what the doctor has said, that you will work with me.”

“Of course, if the child’s life and health are in question:  and, indeed, this climate is much too severe for her, and she certainly does need rousing; and as it has been three months now since Sir Lemuel Levison’s funeral, I don’t see—­But, of course, after all, it is for you and Salome to decide as you please;” answered Lady Belgrade, in a confused and hesitating manner, for when the dowager went outside of her conventionalities she lost herself.

Salome Levison was again besieged by the pleadings of her lover, the counsels of her solicitor, and the arguments of her physician, all with the co-operation of her chaperon.

“I do not see what else can be done, my dear,” she said to her protegee.  “The ceremony can be performed as quietly as possible, and you two can go away, and the world be no wiser.”

“As if I cared for the world!  I will do this in obedience to my dear father’s directions and my betrothed husband’s wishes, and I do not even think of the world,” gravely replied Salome.

“Now, then, to the details, my dear.  What day shall we fix?  And shall the ceremony be preformed here at the castle or at the church at Lone?”

“Oh, not here! not here!  I could not bear to be married here, or at the Lone church either.  No, Lady Belgrade.  We must go up to our town house in London, and be married quietly at St. Peter’s in Kensington, where I used to attend divine service with my dear papa,” said Salome, becoming agitated.

“Very well, my love.  But don’t excite yourself.  We will go.  And the sooner the better.  These horrid Scotch mists are aggravating my rheumatism beyond endurance,” concluded the dowager.

It was now the last week in September.  But so diligently did the dowager, and the servants under her orders exert themselves both at Castle Lone and in London, that before the first of October, Miss Levison, with her chaperon and their attendants, were all comfortably settled in the luxurious town-house in the West End.

The Duke of Hereward took lodgings near the home of his bride-elect.

As the marriage settlements had been executed, and the bridal paraphernalia prepared for the first marriage day set three months before, there was really nothing to do in the way of preparation for the wedding, and no reason for even so much as a week’s delay.  An early day was therefore set.  It was decided that the ceremony should be performed without the least parade.

Since her departure from Castle Lone and her arrival at their town house, the change of scene and of circumstances, and the preliminaries of her wedding and her journey, had the happiest effects upon Miss Levison’s health and spirits.