on hearing of it was
characteristic.

"Good God! But she hasn't a penny!" he said. He realised that the
prospects of his father assisting him out of his many scrapes had
declined since news had arrived of Harold's unlooked-for marriage. When
the scarcely tasted meal was over, Montague sent Lowther upstairs "to
give the ladies company," while he smoked an admirable cigar and drank
the best part of a bottle of old port wine. The tobacco and the wine
brought a philosophical calm to his unquiet mind; he was enabled to
look on the marriage from its least unfavourable aspects. He had always
liked Mavis and would have done much more for her than he had already
accomplished, if his womenfolk had permitted him to follow the leanings
of his heart; he knew her well enough to know that she was not the girl
to bestow herself lightly upon Charlie Perigal. He had not liked
Perigal's share in the matter at all, and the whole business was still
much of a mystery. Although grieved beyond measure that the girl had
married his dearly loved boy, he realised that with Harold's ignorance
of women he might have done infinitely worse.

"What are you going to do?" asked Mrs Devitt of her husband in the
seclusion of their bedroom.

"Try and make the best of it. After all, she's a lady."

"What! You're not going to try and have the marriage annulled?"

It was her husband's turn to express astonishment.

"Surely you'll do something?" she urged.

"What can I do?"

"As you know, it can't be a marriage in--in the worldly sense; when
it's like that something can surely be done," said Mrs Devitt, annoyed
at having to make distant allusions to a subject hateful to her heart.

"What about Harold's feelin's?"

"But--"

"He probably loves her dearly. What of his feelin's if he knew--all
that we know?"

"I did not think of that. Oh dear! oh dear! it gets more and more
complicated. What can be done?"

"Wait."

"What for?"

"Till we see them. Then we can learn the why and the wherefore of it
all and judge accordin'ly."

With this advice Mrs Devitt had to be content, but for all the comfort
it may have contained it was a long time before husband or wife fell
asleep that night.

But even the short period of twenty-four hours is enough to accustom
people to trouble sufficiently to make it tolerable. When this time had
passed, Mrs Devitt's mind was well used to the news which yesterday
afternoon's post had brought. Her mind harked back to C