Beyond the Rocks

But, as Sarah explained to her, such men could never be husbands. They

might be lovers, if one was fortunate enough to move in their sphere,

but husbands--never! and there was no use Theodora protesting this

violent devotion to darling papa, if she could not do a small thing like

marrying Josiah Brown for him!

Theodora's beautiful mother, dead in the first year of her runaway

marriage, had been the daughter of a stiff-necked, unforgiving old earl;

she had bequeathed her child, besides these gentian eyes and wonderful,

silvery blond hair, a warm, generous heart and a more or less romantic

temperament.

The heart was touched by darling papa's needs, and the romantic

temperament revolted by Josiah Brown's personality.

However, there it was! The marriage took place at the Consulate at

Dieppe, and a perfectly miserable little bride got into the train for

Paris, accompanied by a fat, short, prosperous, middle-class English

husband, who had accumulated a large fortune in Australia, quite by

accident, in a comparatively few years.

Josiah Brown was only fifty-two, though his head was bald and his figure

far from slight. He had a liver, a chest, and a temper, and he adored

Theodora.

Captain Fitzgerald had felt a few qualms when he had wished his little

daughter good-bye on the platform and had seen the blue stars swimming

with tears. The two daughters left to him were so plain, and he hated

plain people about him; but, on the other hand, women must marry, and

what chance had he, poor, unlucky devil, of establishing his Theodora

better in life?

Josiah Brown was a good fellow, and he, Dominic Fitzgerald, had for the

first time for many years a comfortable balance at his bankers, and

could run up to Paris himself in a few days, and who knows, the American

widow, fabulously rich--Jane Anastasia McBride--might take him

seriously!

Captain Dominic Fitzgerald was irresistible, and had that fortunate

knack of looking like a gentleman in the oldest clothes. If married for

the third time--but this time prosperously, to a fabulously rich

American--his well-born relations would once more welcome him with open

arms, he felt sure, and visions of the best pheasant shoots at old

Beechleigh, and partridge drives at Rothering Castle floated before his

eyes, quite obscuring the fading smoke of the Paris train.

"A pretty tough, dull affair marriage," he said to himself, reminded

once more of Theodora by treading on a white rose in the station. "Hope

to Heavens Sarah prepared her for it a bit." Then he got into a fiacre

and drove to the hotel, where he and the two remaining Misses Fitzgerald

were living in the style of their forefathers.