'Elizabeth,' I interposed, 'we don't want your advice. Go away at once.'

'I ain't done yet. You'll be glad o' my advice in the end. Experience 'elps a lot. Some men wot's goin' to be married gets a sort o' funk at the last minnit and, bless you, they'd wriggle out o' it, yes, even if they was goin' to marry an angel out o' 'eaven. My friend's 'usband was one o' them sort--wanted to stop the 'ole thing with the weddin'

cake ordered, an' lodgings taken at Margate for the 'oneymoon. But she 'eld 'im to it--stuck to 'im like grim death until' e'd gone through with it. An' now 'e often ses 'e never regrets it for a minnit.'

Marion looked up hopefully. 'Perhaps you're right, Elizabeth.'

'O' course I'm right,' she a.s.serted, throwing a triumphant glance at me as she retired.

'These tactics may be all very well for the lower cla.s.ses,' I said to Marion when we were alone, 'but I'm not quite sure whether they'd answer in every case. No, Marion dear, if William wants to postpone the wedding, it must be done.'

Her face fell at once, and she looked so dejected I felt troubled.

'If you like I will talk to William and try to discover the reason for his change of plan,' I conceded reluctantly, 'but you must understand, dear, that nothing will make me interfere with the natural course of events.'

Rather to my surprise, William touched on the subject the next time he came to see me. We were sitting alone and I was mentally noting his air of depression, when he suddenly burst out: 'Tell me, frankly, do you think a man is justified in--er--postponing a great event in his life--such as, say, his wedding, if he feels uncertain?'

'Uncertain about what?' I asked gently.

'About himself--and everything, you know. True, Johnson has said that marriage is one of the means of happiness--a sentiment delivered, no doubt, by the great master when he was in a light vein--but supposing a man is not sure that he can make a woman happy----'

'And supposing instead of the hypothetical man and woman you are speaking of, we simply quote the case of you and Marion,' I interposed.

'Am I to understand that you do not wish to marry her?'

He started. 'It isn't exactly that. But at the--er--time I--er--offered myself to Marion I had not weighed all the possibilities. To be perfectly frank with you, I am not quite certain of my own affections. I decided that, with companionship, these might develop after marriage. But supposing they do not, then I shall have rendered her unhappy. Is not the risk too great?'

He leaned forward and laid his hand on mine with an expression of great earnestness. 'In this matter,' he said slowly, 'I intend to abide by your decision. I have supreme faith in your judgment, and I do not believe you would advise me wrongly. Tell me what I ought to do. Do you think it is making for the happiness of two people if they are united under these peculiar circ.u.mstances?'

'I said I would never interfere,' I began weakly.

'It isn't a question of interfering,' he broke in, 'but only a matter of advising what you think is right or wrong.'

I hesitated, feeling the responsibility keenly. It is true that I am accustomed to giving advice on these delicate matters. In my capacity of writer on the Woman's Page I often discuss affairs of the heart, getting much correspondence on the subject and (if a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed) giving unsparing help and a.s.sistance to perplexed lovers. But this case seemed entirely different. It lacked any element of the frivolous. I knew that Manor's whole happiness depended on my answer.

Supposing I suggested that the marriage should go on and afterwards the couple turned out to be totally unsuited, what a serious situation I should have created. As a matter of fact, I more than once suspected that they were incompatibles, but hoped that they would ultimately accommodate themselves to each other. If, however, they did not, I should be confronted with the spectacle of two most excellent people (apart) being thoroughly unhappy (together) for the remainder of their lives. I shivered before the prospect, and was on the point of telling William that I would never advise a union to take place unless there was perfect understanding and sympathy between a couple, when he spoke again.

'It's just at the last minute all these doubts have a.s.sailed me,' he explained. 'I didn't realize before how serious a thing marriage is--how irrevocable.'

In a flash Elizabeth's words came into my mind. I recalled her references to men who get in a 'funk' and want to stop proceedings on the eve of the wedding, and then I saw the whole thing. William was that sort of man. I had an instinctive idea just then that no matter who he was going to marry he would have come to me at the eleventh hour with the same bewildered demand for advice.

In that moment I decided to trust to Elizabeth. She seems to have a rude knowledge of life which is almost uncanny at times, but entirely convincing. She has, as it were, a way of going to the heart of things and straightway extracting truth. I felt just then that I could depend on her judgment.

'William,' I said, looking at him steadily in the eye, 'you want my candid opinion?'

'I do,' he replied fervently.

'Then I advise you to go on with the marriage. I have weighed it all up, and I feel it is for the best.'

He wrung my hand silently, and then he rose. 'Thank you,' he said, 'I am sure you are always right.' I thought I detected a note of relief in his voice. Man is a perplexing creature.

The next day Marion came to me overjoyed. 'It's all right, dear,' she announced. 'William wants to get married at once. Netta, you are wonderful--how did you do it? What did you say to him?'

'Never mind,' I said, trying to look enigmatical and rather enjoying Marion's respectful admiration of my wondrous powers, 'all's well that ends well . . . ask Elizabeth if it isn't,' I added as that worthy lurched in with the tea-tray.

'The wedding isn't going to be postponed after all, Elizabeth,'

announced Marion gleefully.

'I knowed it wouldn't be, Miss Marryun, when I see a weddin' wreath in your cup. I tell you the Signs is always right.'

Marion shook her head. 'Not always. Didn't you once tell me that my future husband would cross water to meet me? Mr. Rawlings, now, has been here all the time.'

Elizabeth paused in the act of arranging the tea-table, and stood in a prophetic att.i.tude with the teapot held aloft.

'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?' she demanded. 'Isn't Mr. Roarings an Irishman, an' was born in Dubling? Now I'd like to know 'ow any one can get from Ireland to London without crossin' water, anyway!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Oo ses the Signs is wrong?']

Marion bowed her head, meekly acquiescent. 'I never thought of that, Elizabeth. You always seem to be right.'

CHAPTER XX

I had not seen Marion and William since their marriage as they had gone on a six-months' tour of the Italian lakes, but I was haunted with the foreboding that the match was not, after all, turning out a success.

For one thing, Marion's silence regarding her marriage was unusual.

She wrote only brief notes that made no reference to William. As for William, he did not write at all.

Now Marion is what you would call an ardent correspondent, as well as being a communicative person. If she were happy she would be likely to write no less than eight pages three times a week breathing praise of William--I mean that would be the general tone of her letters. But now she devoted herself exclusively to descriptions of scenery and relating episodes regarding the constant losing and regaining of their baggage on their journeys, which though in its way instructive, struck me as lacking vital interest.

The affair troubled me, because I knew that I was, in a measure, responsible for the match. William had left the decision in my hands, and, on thinking it over, it struck me as a rather cowardly thing to do. What right had he to put it on to me? I knew that if they were not happy I should be haunted by remorse to the end of my days. It was an annoying situation.

When they arrived home and wired from an hotel in London that they were coming up to see me the next day my trepidation increased. Supposing they came to me with reproaches, even recriminations? I awaited their visit in a subdued frame of mind.

Not so Elizabeth. Her jubilant air, her triumphant expression when she spoke of the newly wedded pair, ended by irritating me.

'Getting married isn't the only thing in life; as you seem to think,' I said rather severely, after a remark of hers that she was glad to think Marion was so happily settled.

'Maybe not, but it's the best,' she commented, 'an' as I always sed about Miss Marryun----'

'Mrs. Rawlings,' I corrected.

'Lor', I'll never get used to the name. Mrs. Roarings, then, 'as only got me to thank for the present 'appy state o' things.'

'What do you mean?' I asked, only half interested.

'Well, it's like this yeer,' answered Elizabeth, 'I see from the very first that Mr. Roarings an' Miss Marryun were just suited to each other. The trouble was they didn't see it theirselves, an' so I 'elped to open their eyes like.'