hat crowning the squirrel-coloured hair, were seen in darkening
relief against the flaming orange of the sky.

"A Wedding under Fire. Bridal Ceremony in a Beleaguered City," murmured
the enthusiastic journalist. Her gold fountain-pen, hanging at her
chatelaine, seemed to wriggle like a thing of life, as she imagined
herself aiding, planning, assisting at, and finally sitting down to
describe the ceremony and the wedding-veil on the little Greek head. She
babbled as her quick, bird-like gait carried her along beside the tall,
stately-moving figure in the black habit:

"Dear Bridget ... I may call you that for the sake of old days?"

"If you like."

"This must make you very happy. Society mothers of marriageable daughters
will tear their transformations from their heads, and dance upon them in
despair, when they hear that Beau _s'est range_. But that I don't hold
forth to worldly ears I would enlarge upon the immense social advantages
of such a union for that dear child."

"Of course, I am aware that it is an excellent match."

Were her ears so unworldly? The phrase rankled in her conscience like a
thorn. And in what respect were those Society mothers less managing than
the nun? she asked herself. Could any of them have been more astute, more
eager, more bent on hooking the desirable _parti_ for their girls than she
had shown herself just now? And was this, again, an unworldly voice
whispering to her that the publicity ensured by a paragraph penned by this
gossip-loving little lady would fix him even more securely, bind him more
strongly, make it even less possible for him to retreat, should he desire
it--by burning his boats behind him, so that he had no alternative but to
go on? She sickened with loathing of herself. But for her there was no
retreat either. Here Lady Hannah helped her unawares. With a side-glance
at the noble face beside her, pale olive-hued, worn and faded beyond the
age of the woman by her great labours and her greater griefs, the arched
black eyebrows sprinkled of late with grey, the eyelids thin over the
mobile eyeballs, purpled with lack of sleep and secret, bitter weeping,
the close-folded, deeply cut, eloquent mouth withered like a
japonica-bloom that lingers on in frost, the strong, salient chin framed
in the snowy, starched _guimpe_, she faltered:

"You don't shy at the notion of the par--the announcement in the _Siege
Gazette_, I mean?..."

"Upon the contrary, I approve of it," said th