I
wish I had listened to you at first, and allowed you to take him into our
confidence before his declaration arrived. He may possibly resent the
concealment now. However, this cannot be helped.'

'I tell you what, Viviette,' said Swithin, after a thoughtful pause, 'if
the Bishop is such an earthly sort of man as this, a man who goes falling
in love, and wanting to marry you, and so on, I am not disposed to
confess anything to him at all. I fancied him altogether different from
that.'

'But he's none the worse for it, dear.'

'I think he is--to lecture me and love you, all in one breath!'

'Still, that's only a passing phase; and you first proposed making a
confidant of him.'

'I did. . . . Very well. Then we are to tell nobody but the Bishop?'

'And my brother Louis. I must tell him; it is unavoidable. He suspects
me in a way I could never have credited of him!'

Swithin, as was before stated, had arranged to start for Greenwich that
morning, permission having been accorded him by the Astronomer-Royal to
view the Observatory; and their final decision was that, as he could not
afford time to sit down with her, and write to the Bishop in
collaboration, each should, during the day, compose a well-considered
letter, disclosing their position from his and her own point of view;
Lady Constantine leading up to her confession by her refusal of the
Bishop's hand. It was necessary that she should know what Swithin
contemplated saying, that her statements might precisely harmonize. He
ultimately agreed to send her his letter by the next morning's post,
when, having read it, she would in due course despatch it with her own.

As soon as he had breakfasted Swithin went his way, promising to return
from Greenwich by the end of the week.

Viviette passed the remainder of that long summer day, during which her
young husband was receding towards the capital, in an almost motionless
state. At some instants she felt exultant at the idea of announcing her
marriage and defying general opinion. At another her heart misgave her,
and she was tormented by a fear lest Swithin should some day accuse her
of having hampered his deliberately-shaped plan of life by her intrusive
romanticism. That was often the trick of men who had sealed by marriage,
in their inexperienced youth, a love for those whom their maturer
judgment would have rejected as too obviously disproportionate in years.

However, it was now too late for these l