"And then--" He looked at Arnold for the first time. "Then," he said,
"you may consider it settled."

"The marriage?"

He suddenly looked down again at the blotting-pad. "Yes--the marriage."

Arnold offered his hand in congratulation. Geoffrey never noticed it.
His eyes were off the blotting-pad again. He was looking out of the
window near him.

"Don't I hear voices outside?" he asked.

"I believe our friends are in the garden," said Arnold. "Sir Patrick may
be among them. I'll go and see."

The instant his back was turned Geoffrey snatched up a sheet of
note-paper. "Before I forget it!" he said to himself. He wrote the word
"Memorandum" at the top of the page, and added these lines beneath it:

"He asked for her by the name of his wife at the door. He said, at
dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, 'I take these rooms for my
wife.' He made _her_ say he was her husband at the same time. After
that he stopped all night. What do the lawyers call this in
Scotland?--(Query: a marriage?)"

After folding up the paper he hesitated for a moment. "No!" he thought,
"It won't do to trust to what Miss Lundie said about it. I can't be
certain till I have consulted Sir Patrick himself."