--that the initiative in
disclosing their union should come from her. Yet he hardly doubted that
she would take that initiative when he told her of his extraordinary
reprimand in the churchyard.

This was what he had come to do when Louis saw him standing at the
window. But before he had said half-a-dozen words to Viviette she
motioned him to go on, which he mechanically did, ere he could
sufficiently collect his thoughts on its advisability or otherwise. He
did not, however, go far. While Louis and his sister were discussing him
in the drawing-room he lingered musing in the churchyard, hoping that she
might be able to escape and join him in the consultation he so earnestly
desired.

She at last found opportunity to do this. As soon as Louis had left the
room and shut himself in upstairs she ran out by the window in the
direction Swithin had taken. When her footsteps began crunching on the
gravel he came forward from the churchyard door.

They embraced each other in haste, and then, in a few short panting
words, she explained to him that her brother had heard and witnessed the
interview on that spot between himself and the Bishop, and had told her
the substance of the Bishop's accusation, not knowing she was the woman
in the cabin.

'And what I cannot understand is this,' she added; 'how did the Bishop
discover that the person behind the bed-curtains was a woman and not a
man?'

Swithin explained that the Bishop had found the bracelet on the bed, and
had brought it to him in the churchyard.

'O Swithin, what do you say? Found the coral bracelet? What did you do
with it?'

Swithin clapped his hand to his pocket.

'Dear me! I recollect--I left it where it lay on Reuben Heath's
tombstone.'

'Oh, my dear, dear Swithin!' she cried miserably. 'You have compromised
me by your forgetfulness. I have claimed the article as mine. My
brother did not tell me that the Bishop brought it from the cabin. What
can I, can I do, that neither the Bishop nor my brother may conclude _I_
was the woman there?'

'But if we announce our marriage--'

'Even as your wife, the position was too undignified--too I don't know
what--for me ever to admit that I was there! Right or wrong, I must
declare the bracelet was not mine. Such an escapade--why, it would make
me ridiculous in the county; and anything rather than that!'

'I was in hope that you would agree to let our marriage be known,' said
Swithin, with some disappoi