It was the evening of October 13, 1915, and Sherston was to be
married to-morrow.

Now, for what most people would have thought a puerile reason, that
with him 13 had always proved a luck number, he had much wished that
to-day should be his wedding day. And Helen Pomeroy, his future
wife, who never thought anything he did or desired to do puerile
or unreasonable, had been quite willing to fall in with his fancy.
The lucky day had actually been chosen. Then a tiresome woman, a
sister of Miss Pomeroy's mother, had said she could not be present
at the marriage if it took place on the thirteenth, as on that day
her son, who had been home on leave, was going back to the Front.
She had also pointed out quite unnecessarily, that 13 is an unlucky
number.

Staring out into the darkness, Sherston's stormy, eager heart began
to quiver with longing, with regret, and with the half-painful
rapture of anticipation. He had suddenly visioned--and Sherston
was a man given to vivid visions--where he would have been now, at
this moment, had his marriage indeed taken place this morning. He
saw himself, on this beautiful starlit, moonless night, standing,
along with his dear love, on the platform of a medieval tower, which,
together with the picturesque farmhouse which had been tacked on to
the tower about a hundred years ago, rose, close to the seashore,
on a lonely stretch of the Sussex coast.

But what was not true tonight would be true to-morrow night,
twenty-four hours from now.