Chapter XXXII - Page 2

hear it, Viviette,' said he cheerfully. 'I have felt for a long time that honesty is the best policy.'

'I at any rate feel it now. But it is a policy that requires a great deal of courage!'

'It certainly requires some courage,--I should not say a great deal; and indeed, as far as I am concerned, it demands less courage to speak out than to hold my tongue.'

'But, you silly boy, you don't know what has happened. The Bishop has made me an offer of marriage.'

'Good gracious, what an impertinent old man! What have you done about it, dearest?'

'Well, I have hardly accepted him,' she replied, laughing. 'It is this event which has suggested to me that I should make my refusal a reason for confiding our situation to him.'

'What would you have done if you had not been already appropriated?'

'That's an inscrutable mystery. He is a worthy man; but he has very pronounced views about his own position, and some other undesirable qualities. Still, who knows? You must bless your stars that you have secured me. Now let us consider how to draw up our confession to him. I wish I had listened to you at first, and allowed you to take him into our confidence before his declaration arrived. He may possibly resent the concealment now. However, this cannot be helped.'

'I tell you what, Viviette,' said Swithin, after a thoughtful pause, 'if the Bishop is such an earthly sort of man as this, a man who goes falling in love, and wanting to marry you, and so on, I am not disposed to confess anything to him at all. I fancied him altogether different from that.'

'But he's none the worse for it, dear.'

'I think he is--to lecture me and love you, all in one breath!'

'Still, that's only a passing phase; and you first proposed making a confidant of him.'

'I did. . . . Very well. Then we are to tell nobody but the Bishop?'

'And my brother Louis. I must tell him; it is unavoidable. He suspects me in a way I could never have credited of him!'

Swithin, as was before stated, had arranged to start for Greenwich that morning, permission having been accorded him by the Astronomer- Royal to view the Observatory; and their final decision was that, as he could not afford time to sit down with her, and write to the Bishop in collaboration, each should, during the day, compose a well-considered letter, disclosing their position from his and her own point of view; Lady Constantine leading up to her confession by her refusal of the Bishop's hand. It was necessary that she should know what Swithin contemplated saying, that her statements might precisely harmonize. He ultimately agreed to send her his letter by the next morning's post, when, having read it, she would in due course despatch it with her own.

As soon as he had breakfasted Swithin went his way, promising to return from Greenwich by the end of the week.

Viviette