low voice; "I did not hear the question.
Will you be good enough to repeat it?"

Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly. The old clergyman peered
at her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed
and bloodshot.

Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
tone of reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss Charteris listened
carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."

Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman
between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the
third finger of her left hand. As they did so, her thoughts wandered
again. She was back in the garden with the Boy. He had caught her
left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger
from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he
had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and
tenderness. She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger
separately. She looked down at it. The Professor's ring encircled it.

Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon
her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she
might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.

* * * * *

From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan
for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in
time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by
an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, _en route_
for Brussels.

Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely. She had
never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to
her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels--and the best
of hotels. But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an
authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that
hotels--particularly _Metropole_ hotels--were scarcely proper places.
Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the
company so congenial. But here the Professor had interposed, laying
his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial
company with us."

This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which
the Professor had as yet ventured. The sober, middle-aged side of Miss
Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful
emotion. But the youthf