the immense responsibility of her step and wonderfully older than her
years. Her hostess sounded her at first with suspicious eyes, but
eventually, to Adela's surprise, burst into tears. At this the girl
herself cried, and with the secret happiness of believing they were
saved. Mrs. Churchley said she would think over what she had been
told, and she promised her young friend, freely enough and very
firmly, not to betray the secret of the latter's step to the Colonel.
They were saved--they were saved: the words sung themselves in the
girl's soul as she came downstairs. When the door opened for her she
saw her brother on the step, and they looked at each other in
surprise, each finding it on the part of the other an odd hour for
Prince's Gate. Godfrey remarked that Mrs. Churchley would have
enough of the family, and Adela answered that she would perhaps have
too much. None the less the young man went in while his sister took
her way home.



CHAPTER III



She saw nothing of him for nearly a week; he had more and more his
own times and hours, adjusted to his tremendous responsibilities, and
he spent whole days at his crammer's. When she knocked at his door
late in the evening he was regularly not in his room. It was known
in the house how much he was worried; he was horribly nervous about
his ordeal. It was to begin on the 23rd of June, and his father was
as worried as himself. The wedding had been arranged in relation to
this; they wished poor Godfrey's fate settled first, though they felt