you manage to get it arranged?" "Why _now_? Have you
quarrelled with your mother?" "How long can you be away? I hate a
stingy honeymoon!" "You've got no things." "Do you think they'll know
at home where you are?" "Where are you going afterwards?" "What do you
think your father will say?" "What I want to know is, what put it into
your head _now_, more than any other time?"

Responses to the whole of which, much at random, are incorporated in
what follows: "Julius isn't wanted for three weeks." "I'm sure the
Professor's on our side, really." "I left a letter to tell them,
anyhow." "Calais. We shan't be sick, in weather like this. We'll cross
by the night boat." "I've got a new dress to be married in, and a new
umbrella--oh yes, and other things." "I'll tell you the whole story,
Sally dear, as soon as I've had time to turn round." "No--not
quarrelled--at least, no more than usual." "Special licence, of course."

What time Vereker, who had been to the post-office, which sold all
sorts of things, to inquire if they had a packet of chemical oatmeal
(the only thing his mother could digest this morning), and was coming
back baffled, called in on his way to Mrs. Iggulden's. Not to see
Sally, but only to take counsel with the family about chemical
oatmeal. By a curious coincident, the moment he heard of Miss Sales
Wilson's arrival, he used Sally's expression, and said that there was
"a go!" Perhaps there was, and that accounted for it.

"Here's Dr. Conrad--he'll have to come too." Thus Sally explicitly.
To which he replied, "All right. Where?" Sally replied with gravity:
"To see these two married by special licence." And Julius added: "You
_must_ come, doctor, to be my bottle-holder."

A small undercurrent of thought in the doctor's mind, in which he can
still accommodate passing events and the world's trivialities, begins
to receive impressions of the facts of the case. The great river
called Sally flows steadily on, on its own account, and makes and
meddles not. It despises other folk's petty affairs. Dr. Conrad
masters the position, and goes on to draw inferences.

"Then that must have been _you_ last night, Bradshaw?"

"I dare say it was. When?"

"Walking up and down with another fellow in front here. Smoking
cigars, both of you."

"Why didn't you sing out?"

"Well, now--why didn't I?" He seems a little unable to account for
himself, and no wonder. "I think I recollected it was like you after
you had gone."

"Don