time came in."

Adrian fidgetted uneasily, and felt his cheeks flush. "I can answer for
when it began, with me. I walked across that glade from Arthur's Bridge
quite turned into somebody else, with Gwen stamped on my brain like a
Queen's head on a shilling, and her voice in my ears as plain as the
lark's overhead. But whether we started neck and neck, I know not. I do
know this, though, that I shall never believe that if I had been first
seen by her in my character as a corpse, either she or I would ever have
been a penny the wiser."

"You are the wiser?--quite sure?" The Earl seemed to have his doubts.

"Quite sure. Do you recollect how 'the Duke grew suddenly brave and
wise'? He was only the 'fine empty sheath of a man' before. But it's no
use quoting Browning to you."

"Not the slightest. I suppose he was referring to a case of love at
first sight--is that it?... It is a time-honoured phenomenon, only it
hardly comes into practical politics, because young persons are so
secretive about it. I can't recollect any lady but Rosalind who
mentioned it at the time--or any gentleman but Romeo, for that matter.
Gwen has certainly kept her own counsel for three weeks past."

"Dear Lord Ancester, you are laughing at me...."

"No--no! No, I wouldn't do that. Perhaps I was laughing a little at
human nature. That's excusable. However, I understand that you _are_
cocksure--or sanguine--about the similarity of Romeo's case. I won't
press Gwen about Rosalind's. Of course, if she volunteers information, I
shall have to dismiss the commiseration theory--you understand me?--and
suppose that she is healthily in love. By healthily I mean selfishly. If
no information is forthcoming, all I can say is--the doubt remains; the
doubt whether she is not making herself the family scapegoat, carrying
away the sins of the congregation into the wilderness."

"You know I think that all sheer nonsense, whatever Gwen thinks? She may
think the sins of the congregation are as scarlet. To me they are white
as wool."

"The whole question turns on what Gwen thinks. Believing, as I do, that
my child may be sacrificing herself to expiate a sin of mine, I have no
course but to do my best to prevent her, or, at least to postpone
irrevocable action until it is certain that she is animated by no such
motive. I might advocate that you and she should not meet, for--suppose
we say--a twelvemonth, but that I have so often noticed that absence
not only 'make