Astonished and somewhat alarmed as Lord and Lady Alphingham were at his unexpected appearance, the former had too many sins on his conscience to submit to a public _expose_, which he might justly fear was intended in this threat, and, with great apparent willingness, he consented.

The ceremony was again performed; Grahame possessed himself of the certificate, and left Brussels, with the half-formed resolution that, while Lord Alphingham lived, he would never see his child again.

The death of the Right Honourable Viscountess Alphingham, and the subsequent marriage in Scotland of the Eight Honourable Lord Viscount Alphingham with Miss Grahame, appeared in all the newspapers.

The splendour of the second solemnization of their nuptials in Brussels was the next theme of wonder and gossip, and by the time that subject was exhausted, London had become deserted, and Lord and Lady Alphingham might probably have returned to the metropolis without question or remark; but such was not Lord Alphingham's intention.

He feared that probably were his history publicly known he might be shunned for the deceit he had displayed; and he easily obtained Annie's glad consent to fix their residence for a few years in Paris.
Irritated as in all probability he was, when he found himself again fettered, yet he so ably concealed this irritation, that his wife suspected it not, and for a time she was happy.
As Lord and Lady Alphingham are no longer concerned in our tale, having nothing more in common with those in whom, we trust, our readers are much more interested, we may here formally dismiss them in a few words.
They lived, but if true happiness dwells only with the virtuous and good, with the upright and the noble, it gilded not their lot; but if those who are well acquainted with the morality of the higher classes of the French capital can pronounce that it dwells there, then, indeed, might they be said to possess it, for such was their lives.