omb asked by-and-by, with
obvious self-repression.

'We could do it to-morrow. I could get to Doctors' Commons by noon
to-day, and the licence would be ready by to-morrow morning.'

'I won't go to my aunt's, I will be an independent woman! I have been
reprimanded as if I were a child of six. I'll be your wife if it is as
easy as you say.'

They stopped the cab while they held a consultation. Pierston had rooms
and a studio in the neighbourhood of Campden Hill; but it would be
hardly desirable to take her thither till they were married. They
decided to go to an hotel.

Changing their direction, therefore, they went back to the Strand, and
soon ensconced themselves in one of the venerable old taverns of Covent
Garden, a precinct which in those days was frequented by West-country
people. Jocelyn then left her and proceeded on his errand eastward.

It was about three o'clock when, having arranged all preliminaries
necessitated by this sudden change of front, he began strolling slowly
back; he felt bewildered, and to walk was a relief. Gazing occasionally
into this shop window and that, he called a hansom as by an inspiration,
and directed the driver to 'Mellstock Gardens.' Arrived here, he rang
the bell of a studio, and in a minute or two it was answered by a young
man in shirt-sleeves, about his own age, with a great smeared palette on
his left thumb.

'O, you, Pierston! I thought you were in the country. Come in. I'm
awfully glad of this. I am here in town finishing off a painting for an
American, who wants to take it back with him.'

Pierston followed his friend into the painting-room, where a pretty
young woman was sitting sewing. At a signal from the painter she
disappeared without speaking.

'I can see from your face you have something to say; so we'll have it
all to ourselves. You are in some trouble? What'll you drink?'

'Oh! it doesn't matter what, so that it is alcohol in some shape or
form.... Now, Somers, you must just listen to me, for I HAVE something
to tell.'

Pierston had sat down in an arm-chair, and Somers had resumed his
painting. When a servant had brought in brandy to soothe Pierston's
nerves, and soda to take off the injurious effects of the brandy, and
milk to take off the depleting effects of the soda, Jocelyn began his
narrative, addressing it rather to Somers's Gothic chimneypiece, and
Somers's Gothic clock, and Somers's Gothic rugs, than to Somers himself,
who stood at his picture a