She took hold of me, she
almost sank on her knees. It seems to me highly immoral, one's
participation in her fraud; but there's no doubt that she must be
married: I don't know what I don't see behind it! Therefore," I wound
up, "Dawling must keep his hands off."

Mrs. Meldrum had held her breath; she gave out a long moan. "Well,
that's exactly what I came here to tell him."

"Then here he is." Our host, all unprepared, his latchkey still in his
hand, had just pushed open the door and, startled at finding us, turned a
frightened look from one to the other, wondering what disaster we were
there to announce or avert.

Mrs. Meldrum was on the spot all gaiety. "I've come to return your sweet
visit. Ah," she laughed, "I mean to keep up the acquaintance!"

"Do--do," he murmured mechanically and absently, continuing to look at
us. Then he broke out: "He's going to marry her."

I was surprised. "You already know?"

He produced an evening paper, which he tossed down on the table. "It's
in that."

"Published--already?" I was still more surprised.

"Oh Flora can't keep a secret!"--Mrs. Meldrum made it light. She went up
to poor Dawling and laid a motherly hand upon him.

"It's all right--it's just as it ought to be: don't think about her ever
any more." Then as he met this adjuration with a stare from which
thought, and of the most defiant and dismal, fairly protruded, the
excellent woman put up her funny face and tenderly kissed him on the
cheek.

CHAPTER X

I have spoken of these reminiscences as of a row of coloured beads, and I
confess that as I continue to straighten out my chaplet I am rather proud
of the comparison. The beads are all there, as I said--they slip along
the string in their small smooth roundness. Geoffrey Dawling accepted as
a gentleman the event his evening paper had proclaimed; in view of which
I snatched a moment to nudge him a hint that he might offer Mrs. Meldrum
his hand. He returned me a heavy head-shake, and I judged that marriage
would henceforth strike him very much as the traffic of the street may
strike some poor incurable at the window of an hospital. Circumstances
arising at this time led to my making an absence from England, and
circumstances already existing offered him a firm basis for similar
action. He had after all the usual resource of a Briton--he could take
to his boats, always drawn up in our background. He started on a journey
round the globe, and