not yet taken place. With a heart heavy
with forebodings I no longer sought to analyse, I made my way down, and
reached the lower step of the great staircase just as a half-dozen
girls, rushing from different quarters of the hall, surrounded the heavy
form of Mr. Armstrong coming from his own little room.

Their questions made a small hubbub. With a good-natured gesture he put
them all back, and, raising his voice, said to the assembled crowd:

"It has been decided by Miss Murray that, under the circumstances, it
will be wiser for her to postpone the celebration of her marriage to
some time and place less fraught with mournful suggestions. A telegram
has just been sent to the Bishop to that effect, and while we all suffer
from this disappointment, I am sure there is no one here who will not
see the propriety of her decision."

As he finished, Gilbertine appeared behind him. At the same moment I
caught, or thought I did, the flash of Sinclair's eye from the recesses
of the room beyond; but I could not stop to make sure of this, for
Gilbertine's look and manner were such as to draw my full attention, and
it was with a mixture of almost inexplicable emotions that I saw her
thread her way among her friends, in a state of high feeling which made
her blind to their outstretched hands and deaf to the murmur of interest
and sympathy which instinctively followed her. She was making for the
stairs, and whatever her thoughts, whatever the state of her mind, she
moved superbly, in her pale, yet seemingly radiant abstraction. I
watched her, fascinated, yet when she left the last group and began to
cross the small square of carpet which alone separated us, I stepped
down and aside, feeling that to meet her eye just then without knowing
what had passed between her and Sinclair would be cruel to her and
well-nigh unbearable to myself.

She saw the movement and seemed to hesitate an instant, then she turned
for one brief instant in my direction, and I saw her smile. Great God!
it was the smile of innocence. Fleeting as it was, the pride that was in
it, the sweet assertion and the joy were unmistakable. I felt like
springing to Sinclair's side in the gladness of my relief, but there was
no time; another door had opened down the hall, another person had
stepped upon the scene, and Miss Murray, as well as myself, recognised
by the hush which at once fell upon every one present that something of
still more startling import awaited us.