her own," his mother
said.

"You talk as though she were my wife!" he said, the bitter lines about his
set mouth softening in a smile.

"She would be but for what is past," said Mrs. Saxham. "She must be soon,
for your sake. Your father would have wished that there should be as
little delay as possible. Marry quietly at once, and take her abroad. If
she loves you, as I know she does, and must, she will not regret the
wedding-gown from Paquin's and the six bridesmaids in Directoire hats."

For that deferred wedding was to have been a gorgeous and impressive
function at St. George's, Hanover Square, with a Bishop in lawn sleeves to
pronounce the nuptial benediction, palms, Japanese lilies, smilax, and
white Rambler roses everywhere, while the celebrated "Non Angli sed
Angeli" choir of boy-choristers had been specially engaged to render the
anthem with proper fervour and give due effect to "The Voice that
Breathed."

Owen promised and went back to London. There were cards and envelopes upon
the salver in the hall, but not one from Mildred. That stabbed him to the
heart.... Not a line, O God!--not a written line, in answer to that letter
in which he told her of the acquittal, and of his father's death, and of
his own anguish at having to answer the stern call of filial duty, and
leave dear Love uncomforted by even one kiss after all these weeks of
famine, and hurry away to lay that grand grey head in the vault that
covered so many Saxhams. Not a line. But here was the letter, which his
idiot of a servant, demoralised by the recent catastrophe, had forgotten
to send on lying waiting upon the writing-table in his study. He snatched
at it in desperate haste, and tore the envelope open.

Her letter bore the date of that day. She said she had written before and
torn the confession up ... it was so difficult to be just to him and true
to herself.... It was a roundabout, involved, youthfully grandiloquent
epistle in which Mildred announced that her love for Owen was dead, that
nothing could ever resuscitate it; that she could not, would not, ever
marry him, and that she had returned in an accompanying packet his ring,
and presents, and letters, and would ever remain _his friend_ (underlined)
Mildred. In a rather wobbly postscript, she begged him not to write or to
attempt to see her, because her decision was irrevocable. She spelt the
word with only one _r_.

Saxham read the letter three times deliberately. The w