three
years ago."

"That's how you came to know about my father, I suppose."

"Yes," she said. "I had him pointed out to me, and you look a good deal
alike. Besides, the name's not common."

"I'm glad you liked Blanford well enough to come back to it."

"Oh," she returned, looking up at him with a roguish smile, "this
section of the country has other associations for me."

"I was waiting for that," he retorted. "In which of the neighbouring
towns were you married?"

"The one nearest here," she replied. "I think we can just see the spire
of the church over the trees. But how did you know?"

"I inferred it as a matter of course," he said banteringly, "but I'm
only joking."

"But I'm not," she returned.

"Do you really mean that you were married over there?" he asked,
pointing to the distant church.

"Yes," she replied. "The third of June, 1895."

"I say, you know," he said, "I think you might have married me once in a
way, as I had asked you."

"Mr. Banborough," she replied stiffly, drawing herself up, "you forget
yourself."

"I beg your pardon," he returned humbly. "Only as American divorce laws
are so lax, I thought--"

"The divorce laws of my country are a disgrace, and nothing would ever
induce me to avail myself of them. Besides, marriage, to me, is a very
serious and solemn matter, and I can't permit you to speak about it
flippantly, even by way of a joke."

Cecil picked up a handful of pebbles and began throwing them
meditatively at the fragment of an adjacent arch. The more he saw of
Miss Arminster, the greater mystery she became. By her own admission,
she had been married at least half a dozen times, which, were he to
accept as real the high moral standard which she always assumed, must
imply a frightful mortality among her husbands. But then she neither
seemed flippant nor shallow, and her serious attitude towards the
sacrament of marriage appeared wholly incompatible with a matrimonial
experience which might have caused a Mormon to shudder. Anyway, she
wasn't going to marry him, and he turned to the discussion of more
fruitful subjects.

"How's Spotts getting on with his studies in architecture?" he asked.

"I should think he'd learned a good deal," she replied. "Your father
hasn't left a stone of his own cathedral unexplained, and I imagine
he'll put him through his paces over this abbey."

"Poor Spotts! I'm afraid he's had a hard row to hoe," said Cecil; "but,
anyway, it'll keep him