The old vows were repeated without the slightest
reference being made by either party to the cause which had interfered
to prevent them from having been fulfilled. It was not for Annie to
proffer a reason, and it did not seem to be the wish of Menelaws to ask
one. In a short time afterwards they were married.
The new-married couple, apparently happy in the enjoyment of an
affection which had continued so long, and had survived the crossing of
a new love, at least on one side, removed to a separate house farther up
in the Lawnmarket. Menelaws had previously graduated as a doctor, and he
commenced to practise as such, not without an amount of success.
Meanwhile the councillor died, leaving Annie a considerable fortune. In
the course of somewhere about ten years they had five children. They at
length resolved on occupying the old house with the garden, for Annie's
reluctance became weakened by time. It was on the occasion of the
flitting that Annie had to rummage an old trunk which Menelaws, long
after the marriage, had brought from the house of his father, the dealer
in pelts. There at the bottom, covered over by a piece of brown paper,
she found--what? The very slipper which matched the one she still
secretly retained in her possession.
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