CHAPTER III.
AT CHELTENHAM.
The month at Cheltenham was passed very quietly and would have been a very happy month with Mary Masters but that there grew upon her from day to day increasing fears of what she would have to undergo when she returned to Dillsborough.

At the moment when she was hesitating with Larry Twentyman, when she begged him to wait six months and then at last promised to give him an answer at the end of two, she had worked herself up to think that it might possibly be her duty to accept her lover for the sake of her family.

At any rate she had at that moment thought that the question of duty ought to be further considered, and therefore she had vacillated.

When the two months' delay was accorded to her, and within that period the privilege of a long absence from Dillsborough, she put the trouble aside for a while with the common feeling that the chapter of accidents might do something for her.

Before she had reached Cheltenham the chapter of accidents had done much.