One more day only before that of the wedding.  Dyce had been on the point of asking whether all the business with Wrybolt was satisfactorily settled; but delicacy withheld him.  Really, there was nothing to do; Iris’s money simply passed into her own hands on the event of her marriage.  It would be time enough to talk of such things presently.

They spent nearly all the last day together.  Iris was in the extremity of nervousness; she looked as if she had not slept for two or three nights; often she hid her face against Dyce’s shoulder, and shook as if sobbing, but no tears followed.

“Do you love me?” she asked, again and again.  “Do you really, really love me?”

“But you know I do,” Dyce answered, at length irritably.  “How many times must I tell you?  It’s all very well to be womanly, but don’t be womanish.”

“You’re not sorry you’re going to marry me?”

“You’re getting hysterical, and I can’t stand that.”

Hysterical she became as soon as Lashmar had left her.  One of the two servants, looking into the dressing-room before going to bed, saw her lying, half on the floor, half against the sofa, in a lamentable state.  She wailed incoherent phrases.

“I can’t help it—­too late—­I can’t, can’t help it oh! oh!”

Unobserved, the domestic drew back, and went to gossip with her fellow-servant of this strange incident.

The hours drove on.  Lashmar found himself at the church, accompanied by his father, his mother, his old friend the Home Office clerk.  They waited the bride’s coming; she was five minutes late, ten minutes late; but came at last.  With her were two ladies, kinsfolk of hers.  Had Iris risen from a sick bed to go through this ceremony, she could not have shown a more disconcerting visage.  But she held herself up before the altar.  The book was opened; the words of fate were uttered; the golden circlet slipped onto her trembling hand; and Mrs. Dyce Lashmar passed forth upon her husband’s arm to the carriage that awaited them.

A week went by.  They were staying at Dawlish, and Lashmar, who had quite come round to his wife’s opinion on the subject of the honeymoon, cared not how long these days of contented indolence lulled his ambitious soul; at times he was even touched by the devotion which repaid his sacrifice.  A certain timidity which clung to Iris, a tremulous solicitude which marked her behaviour to him, became her, he thought, very well indeed.  Constance Bride was right; he could not have been thus at his ease with a woman capable of reading his thoughts, and of criticising them.  He talked at large of his prospects, which took a hue from the halcyon sea and sky.

One morning they had strolled along the cliffs, and in a sunny hollow they sat down to rest.  Dyce took from his pocket a newspaper he had bought on coming forth.

“Let us see what fools are doing,” he said genially.

Iris watched him with uneasy eye.  The sight of a newspaper was dreadful to her:  yet she always eagerly scanned those that came under her notice.  Lying now on the dry turf, she was able to read one page whilst Dyce occupied himself with another.  Of a sudden she began to shake; then a half-stifled cry escaped her.