Frances saw to it that she had a decent one.  Now was the time, the only time, that she should want her money, and she did not spare it.  She ordered right and left, and Deb seemed equally reckless.  The bills were left for her to settle—­of course made out in her name.  Mr Ewing pressed for permission to pay them, and the cost of the wedding, and Miss Pennycuick could hardly forgive him the deadly insult.  He also desired that she should occupy her villa rent-free, and she gave him notice on the spot.

“I shall not continue to keep house when I am alone,” said she grandly.  “I intend to travel for a time.”

The wedding was quiet, but as “decent” as the trousseau.  The other sisters were invited, and Bennet Goldsworthy—­who delighted in the connection, and received a thumping fee—­performed the ceremony.  Deb gave the bride away, but was also treated as the bridesmaid, and had a diamond bracelet forced upon her.  She sold it as soon as the donor’s back was turned, together with every article of jewellery in her possession, every bit of silver plate, and all her furniture.  The breakfast was very elegant, and served in a private room at one of the best hotels; the bride’s handsome luggage had also been brought thither, and it was the meeting-place of the family which so seldom met.  There, also, when she had parted from Frances, Deb parted from Mary, so silent and constrained, and from Rose, over-dressed, for her station, in her rich gown and Brussels lace (but nevertheless sniffed at and condescended to by her still more wealthy sister), and from the uncongenial brothers-in-law, to whom she was so discouragingly polite.  Their expressed anxiety to befriend and to see more of her was gently but firmly ignored.

“I will write,” she said.  “I will see you again soon.  I will let you know my plans.  Good-bye!”

And they went.  There were no friends to go, for she had insisted on inviting none—­for fear of the lynx eyes and the destructive influence upon her plans of Mr Thornycroft and Jim.  She gained the one end she had schemed for throughout—­to get past the risks of the public marriage and back to her struggle in obscurity, unmolested, unpitied, unshamed.  The Urquharts wrote, and Mr Thornycroft, when he sent his present; but she had “bluffed” them with her implied misrepresentations, and hurt their feelings by not wanting them at the wedding.  Jim was easily snubbed; Mr Thornycroft—­though he did not mention it—­was ill at the time.

So she got rid of all possible hindrances, and then—­professing to go travelling—­went nobody knew where, and was virtually lost for years.

Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister.  She could only think of her own exciting affairs.