Then she said drily,-- "You must always consider whether it is just to Mr.Raeburn to let a matter of this kind interfere so considerably with his wishes and his plans.

He must, I suppose, be in London for Parliament within six weeks." Marcella did not answer.

She sat with her hands round her knees lost in perplexities.

The wedding, as originally fixed, was now three weeks and three days off.

After it, she and Aldous were to have spent a short fortnight's honeymoon at a famous house in the north, lent them for the occasion by a Duke who was a cousin of Aldous's on the mother's side, and had more houses than he knew what to do with.