In a moment of mortal chagrin and outraged vanity she consented to marry him, and three weeks afterwards he was the blissful owner of the black eyes, the small hands, the quick tongue, and the seductive _chiffons_ he had so long admired more or less at a distance.
Their marriage lasted six years.

At first Louise found some pleasure in arranging the little house Sandy had taken for her in a new suburb, and in making, wearing, and altering the additional gowns which their joint earnings--for she still worked intermittently at her trade--allowed her to enjoy.

After the first infatuation was a little cooled, Sandy discovered in her a paganism so unblushing that his own Scotch and Puritan instincts reacted in a sort of superstitious fear.

It seemed impossible that God Almighty should long allow Himself to be flouted as Louise flouted Him.

He found also that the sense of truth was almost non-existent in her, and her vanity, her greed of dress and admiration, was so consuming, so frenzied, that his only hope of a peaceful life--as he quickly realised--lay in ministering to it.