btless, this vitality, drawn from deep down in her native
soil, that braced her now, to simply holding fast intuitively and
almost blindly till the first force of the shock should have so spent
itself that the normal working of the faculties might begin again. It
was the something of which she had just spoken to her father--the
something that might be pride but that was not wholly pride, which had
never been taxed nor called on. She could not have defined it in a more
positive degree; but even now, when all was confusion and
disintegration, she was conscious of its being there, an untouched
treasure of resources.

In what it supplied her with, however, there was no answer to the
question that had been silently making itself urgent from the first word
of her father's revelations: What was to happen with regard to her
wedding? It took the practical form of dealing with the mere outward
paraphernalia--the service, the bridesmaids, the guests, the feast.
Would it be reasonable, would it be decent, to carry out rich and
elaborate plans in a ruined house? Further than that she dared not
inquire, though she knew very well there was still a greater question to
be met. When, during the course of the morning, Drusilla Fane came to
see her, Olivia broached it timidly, though the conversation brought her
little in the way of help.

Knowing all she knew through the gossip of servants, Drusilla felt the
necessity of being on her guard. She accepted Olivia's information that
her father had met with losses as so much news, and gave utterance to
sentiments of sympathy and encouragement. Beyond that she could not go.
She was obliged to cast her condolences in the form of bald
generalities, since she could make but a limited use of the name of
Rupert Ashley as a source of comfort. More clearly than any one in their
little group she could see what marriage with Olivia in her new
conditions--the horrible, tragic conditions that would arise if Peter
could do nothing--would mean for him. She weighed her words, therefore,
with an exactness such as she had not displayed since her early days
among the Sussex Rangers, measuring the little more and the little less
as in an apothecary's balances.

"You see," Olivia said, trying to sound her friend's ideas, "from one
point of view I scarcely know him."

"You know him well enough to be in love with him." Drusilla felt that
that committed her to nothing.

"That doesn't imply much--not necessaril