plan. There was a system at Beaufort by which, after a certain number
of years' service, a Fellow could take a year off duty, without
affecting his seniority or his position. "I am going to do this," he
said. "I do not think it is unwise. I am too old, I think, both to make
Maud's acquaintance as I wish, and to keep my work going at the same
time. It would be impossible. So I will settle down here, if you will
let me, and try to understand the place and the people; and then if it
seems well, I will go back to Cambridge in October year, and go on with
my work. I hope you will approve of that?"

"I do entirely approve," said Mrs. Graves. "I will make over to you at
once what you will in any case ultimately inherit--and I believe your
young lady is not penniless either? Well, money has its uses sometimes."

Howard did this. Mr. Redmayne wrote him a letter in which affection and
cynicism were curiously mingled.

"There will be two to please now instead of one," he wrote. "I do not,
of course, approve of Dons marrying. The tender passion is, I believe,
inimical to solid work; this I judge from observation rather than from
experience. But you will get over all that when you are settled; and
then if you decide to return--and we can ill spare you--I hope you will
return to work in a reasonable frame of mind. Pray give my respects to
the young lady, and say that if she would like a testimonial to your
honesty and sobriety, I shall be happy to send her one."

All these experiences, shared by Maud, were absurdly delightful to
Howard. She was rather alarmed by Redmayne's letter.

"I feel as if I were doing rather an awful thing," she said, "in taking
you away like this. I feel like Hotspur's wife and Enid rolled into
one. I shouldn't DARE to go with you at once to Cambridge--I should
feel like a Pomeranian dog on a lead."

And so it came to pass that on a certain Monday in the month of
September a very quiet little wedding took place at Windlow. The bells
were rung, and a hideous object of brushwood and bunting, that looked
like the work of a bower-bird, was erected in the road, and called a
triumphal arch. Mr. Redmayne insisted on coming, and escorted Monica
from Cambridge, "without in any way compromising my honour and virtue,"
he said: "it must be plainly understood that I have no INTENTIONS." He
made a charming speech at the subsequent luncheon, in which he said
that, though he personally regretted the turn that affairs ha