y to him, quivering.

"The only thing to do is to stick it out, and when the time comes--if
it comes--put up a good fight. I think we shall," he said in a
cheering tone.

"Of course we will," she said firmly, gave herself a little shake, and
relaxed her grip a little.

He kissed her again, and they were silent a while, both of them
thinking hard.

Then he said: "Look here: let's get married."

"Get married?" she said.

"Yes. The more we belong to one another the better we shall feel."

"But--but won't there be rather an outcry at our marrying so
soon?" she said.

"Oh, if people knew of it, yes. But I don't propose that they should.
We'll get married quite quietly. I'll get a special licence. The padre
of my regiment is in Town, and he'll marry us. I can find a couple of
witnesses who'll hold their tongues. We can get married in twenty-four
hours. Will you?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

His surprise at her ready assent was drowned in the joy it gave him.

The next morning at half-past nine Mr. Manley rang up Mr. Flexen at his
office at Low Wycombe.

When he heard his voice he said: "Good morning, Flexen. A young fellow of
the name of William Roper will be calling on you this morning. I expect
you know all he has to say already. But do you see anything to be gained
by his making a pestiferous, scandal-mongering nuisance of himself?"

"I do not. I will say a few kind words to him," said Mr. Flexen grimly.

Mr. Manley thanked him and rang off. Then he sent Hutchings down to the
village to let it be known that any one who let William Roper lodge in
his or her cottage would at once receive notice to quit it. He thought it
improbable, in view of the general unpleasantness of William Roper, that
he would be called on to carry out the threat.

William Roper had already started to pay his visit to Mr. Flexen. Mr.
Flexen kept him dangling his heels in his office for three-quarters of an
hour before he saw him. This cold welcome allowed much of William
Roper's sense of his great importance in the district to ooze out of him.

Mr. Flexen emptied him of the rest of it. He greeted him curtly, heard
his story with a deepening frown, and abused him at some length for a
babbling idiot, and sent him about his business. William Roper returned
to his mother's cottage to find that her only object in life was to get
him out of her cottage then and there. She had conceived the idea that
the whole affair was a plot to have a go