"There was a mistake--or rather a fraud--about the date of Sir Randolph Edge's death; his brother knew it. I'll tell you the details if you like. But that's the end and the sum of it. As to why he didn't tell--er--his wife sooner, perhaps you know better than I."

"Yes, I know that," she said. And then--it was most inconsiderate, most painful to Mr Neeld--she began to cry. Unable to bear this climax of excitement coming on the top of her two days' emotion, she sobbed hysterically. "They'll be here at seven!" she moaned. "What will happen?

Oh, Mr Neeld! And I know he'll expect me to be calm and--and to carry it off--and be composed. How can I be?"

"Perhaps a gla.s.s of sherry----?" was Mr Neeld's not unreasonable suggestion.

No, the old brown would not serve here. But without its aid a sudden change came over Mina. She sprang to her feet and left the tears to roll down her cheeks untended as she cried,

"What a splendid thing to do! Oh, how like Harry! And it's to be settled to-night! What can we do to make it go right?"

"I intend to take no responsibility at all," protested Neeld. "I'm here to speak to the facts if I'm wanted, but----"

"Oh, bother the facts! What are we to do to make her take it properly?"

She gave another sob. "Oh, I'm an idiot!" she cried. "Haven't you anything to suggest, Mr Neeld?"

He shrugged his shoulders peevishly. Her spirits fell again.

"I see! Yes, if she--if she doesn't take it properly, he'll go away again, and I'm to be ready to stay here." Another change in the barometer came in a flash. "But she can't help being Lady Tristram now!"

"It's all a most unjustifiable proceeding. He tricks the girl----"

"Yes, he had to. That was the only chance. If he'd told her before----"

"But isn't she in love with him?"

"Oh, you don't know the Tristrams! Oh, what are we to do?" Save running through every kind and degree of emotion Mina seemed to find nothing to do.

"And I'm bound to say that I consider our position most embarra.s.sing."

Mr Neeld spoke with some warmth, with some excuse too perhaps. To welcome a newly married couple home may be thought always to require some tact; when it is a toss-up whether they will not part again for ever under your very eyes the situation is not improved. Such trials should not be inflicted on quiet old bachelors; Josiah Cholderton had not done with his editor yet.

"We must treat it as a mere trifle," the Imp announced, fixing on the thing which above all others she could not achieve. Yet her manner was so confident that Neeld gasped. "And if that doesn't do, we must tell her that the happiness of her whole life depends on what she does to-night." Variety of treatment was evidently not to be lacking.

"I intend to take no responsibility of any kind. He's got himself into a sc.r.a.pe. Let him get out of it," persisted Neeld.

"I thought you were his friend?"

"I may be excused if I consider the lady a little too."

"I suppose I don't care for Cecily? Do you mean that, Mr Neeld?"

"My dear friend, need we quarrel too?"

"Don't be stupid. Who's quarrelling? I never knew anybody so useless as you are. Can't you do anything but sit there and talk about responsibilities?" She was ranging about, a diminutive tiger of unusually active habits. She had wandered round the room again before she burst out:

"Oh, but it's something to see the end of it!"

That was his feeling too, however much he might rebuke himself for it.

Human life at first-hand had not been too plentiful with him. The Imp's excitement infected him. "And he's back here after all!" she cried. "At least--Heavens, they'll be here directly, Mr Neeld!"

"Yes, it's past seven," said he.

"Come into the garden. We'll wait for them on the bridge." She turned to him as they pa.s.sed through the hall. "Wouldn't you like something of this sort to happen to you?" she asked.

No. He was perturbed enough as a spectator; he would not have been himself engaged in the play.

"Why isn't everybody here?" she demanded, with a laugh that was again nervous and almost hysterical. "Why isn't Addie Tristram here? Ah, and your old Cholderton?"

"Hark, I hear wheels on the road," said Mr Neeld.

Mina looked hard at him. "She shall do right," she said, "and Harry shall not go."

"Surely they'll make the best of a----?"

"Oh, we're not talking of your Ivers and your Broadleys!" she interrupted indignantly. "If they were like that, we should never have been where we are at all."

How true it was, how lamentably true! One had to presuppose Addie Tristram, and turns of fortune or of chance wayward as Addie herself--and to reckon with the same blood, now in young and living veins.

"I can't bear it," whispered Mina.

"He'll expect you to be calm and composed," Neeld reminded her.

"Then give me a cigarette," she implored despairingly.

"I am not a smoker," said Mr Neeld.

"Oh, you really are the very last man----! Well, come on the bridge,"

groaned Mina.

They waited on the bridge, and the wheels drew near. They spoke no more.

They had found nothing to do. They could only wait. A fly came down the road.

There they sat, side by side. Cecily was leaning forward, her eyes were eager, and there was a bright touch of color on her cheeks; Harry leant back, looking at her, not at Blent. He wore a quiet smile; his air was very calm. He saw Mina and Neeld, and waved his hand to them. The fly stopped opposite the bridge. He jumped out and a.s.sisted Cecily to alight. In a moment she was in Mina's arms. The next, she recognized Neeld's presence with a little cry of surprise. At a loss to account for himself, the old man stood there in embarra.s.sed wretchedness.

"I want you to wait," said Harry to the driver. "Put up in the stables, and they'll give you something to eat. You must wait till I send you word."

"Wait? Why is he to wait, Harry?" asked Cecily. Her tone was gay; she was overflowing with joy and merriment. "Who's going away? Oh, is it you, Mr Neeld?"

"I--I have a trap from Mr Iver's," he stammered.

"I may want to send a message," Harry explained. "Kind of you to come, Mr Neeld."

"I--I must wish you joy," said Neeld, taking refuge in conventionality.

"We've had a capital journey down, haven't we, Cecily? And I'm awfully hungry. What time is it?"

Mason was rubbing his hands in the doorway.

"Dinner's ordered at eight, sir," said he.