ngs Mrs. De Guenther had given
her, and nothing else. She found herself at the door of her room with
the locked suit-case in her hand, and not even a nail-file of the things
belonging to her old self in it. She shook herself together, managed to
laugh a little, and returned and put in such things as she thought she
would require for the night. Then she went. She always remembered that
journey as long as she lived; her hands and feet and tongue going on,
buying tickets, giving directions--and her mind, like a naughty child,
catching at everything as they went, and screaming to be allowed to go
back home, back to the dusty, matter-of-course library and the dreary
little boarding-house bedroom!

VII

They were all waiting for her, in what felt like a hideously quiet
semicircle, in Allan's great dark room. Mrs. Harrington, deadly pale,
and giving an impression of keeping herself alive only by force of that
wonderful fighting vitality of hers, lay almost at length in her
wheel-chair. There was a clergyman in vestments. There were the De
Guenthers; Mr. De Guenther only a little more precise than his every-day
habit was, Mrs. De Guenther crying a little, softly and furtively.

As for Allan Harrington, he lay just as she had seen him that other
time, white and moveless, seeming scarcely conscious except by an
effort. Only she noticed a slight contraction, as of pain, between his
brows.

"Phyllis has come," panted Mrs. Harrington. "Now it will be--all right.
You must marry him quickly--quickly, do you hear, Phyllis? Oh, people
never will--do--what I want them to----"

"Yes--yes, indeed, dear," said Phyllis, taking her hands soothingly.
"We're going to attend to it right away. See, everything is ready."

It occurred to her that Mrs. Harrington was not half as correct in her
playing of the part of a dying woman as she would have seen to it that
anyone else was; also, that things did not seem legal without the
wolfhound. Then she was shocked at herself for such irrelevant thoughts.
The thing to do was to keep poor Mrs. Harrington quieted. So she
beckoned the clergyman and the De Guenthers nearer, and herself sped the
marrying of herself to Allan Harrington.

... When you are being married to a Crusader on a tomb, the easiest way
is to kneel down by him. Phyllis registered this fact in her mind quite
blankly, as something which might be of use to remember in future....
The marrying took an unnecessarily long time, it