nd the factor-lawyer, Owen Pengarvin. A little back of
them the good old Father Matthieu had Margery on his arm. And in the
corner Tybee stood to keep the door.

I grouped them all in one swift eye-sweep, and having listed them,
strove to read some lessoning of my part in my dear lady's face. She
gave me nothing of encouragement, nor yet a cue of any kind to lead to
what it was that she would have me say or do. As I had seen it last,
under the light of the flaring torches in the room below, her face was
cold and still; and she was standing motionless beside the priest,
looking straight at me, it seemed, with eyes that saw nothing.

It was the factor-lawyer who broke the silence, saying, with his
predetermined smirk, that the parchment was ready for my signature.
Thinking it well beneath me to measure words with this knavish
pettifogger, I looked beyond him and spoke to his master.

"I would have a word or two in private with your daughter before this
matter ripens further, Mr. Stair," I said.

My lady dropped the priest's arm and came to stand beside me in the
window-bay. I offered her a chair but she refused to sit. There was so
little time to spare that I must needs begin without preliminary.

"What has your father told you, Margery?" I asked.

"He tells me nothing that I care to know."

"But he has told you what you must do?"

"Yes." She looked with eyes that saw me not.

"And you are here to do it of your own free will?"

"No."

"Yet it must be done."

"So he says, and so you say. But I had rather die."

"'Tis not a pleasing thing, I grant you, Margery; notwithstanding, of
our two evils it is by far the less. Bethink you a moment: 'tis but the
saying of a few words by the priest, and the bearing of my name for some
short while till you can change it for a better."

Her deep-welled eyes met mine, and in them was a flash of anger.

"Is that what marriage means to you, Captain Ireton?"

"No, truly. But we have no choice. 'Tis this, or I must leave you in the
morning to worse things than the bearing of my name. I would it had not
thus been thrust upon us, but I could see no other way."

"See what comes of tampering with the truth," she said, and I could see
her short lip curl with scorn. "Why should you lie and lie again, when
any one could see that it must come to this--or worse?"

"I saw it not," I said. "But had I stopped to look beyond the moment's
need and seen the end from the beginning, I fea