‘Poor, sweet little woman!’ he answered, for now he was touched deeply by his own remorse. ‘There, you are happy now?
‘So happy, Paul! So happy!’
He kissed her and left her there, and loading up his pipe, set out at a brisk pace across the common in the direction of the little township in which the registrar was to be found. Half an hour’s walk brought him there, and the functionary was at home. Paul explained his errand and its urgency. A special fee obviated publicity, and he paid it. Money smoothes all kinds of roads, and in arrangements for marriage it will almost abolish time.
Arrangements concluded, the coming bridegroom hastened home, his heart warm with resolve and tender with a new-born affection. It was curious, he thought, that he should so have misunderstood a woman with whom he had been so long in the closest intercourse. That placid, yielding way of hers, that habit of mind which he had regarded in his mannish fashion as being altogether gelatinous and invertebrate—how ill he had construed it all. What a depth of feeling lay concealed beneath it! ‘Je voudrais encontrer ma mère au ciel, comme fille honnête.’ Ah! the poor creature, who had yielded too easily to his embraces and his flatteries, whom he had led astray with professions of love and admiration which had never been real—what amends were too large to repay her? And the promised amend seemed little enough, for he had not contemplated life away from Annette. His association with her had isolated him in a certain degree, but if good women were out of his life, and he missed them sometimes rather sadly, good fellows were plentiful, married and single, and the length of time for which his liaison had lasted had lent it a kind of respectability. Possibly, after all, even if Annette had not been about to release him, marriage would have been the best solution of a difficulty. He wondered now why he had never thought of it earlier. Simply because a trustful girl in her innocence and ignorance had permitted herself to repose her whole future on one who might have played the scoundrel with her, he had been content to forget his duty. Well, he would atone.
The ceremony, when it came, was of the simplest, and had a bald and business air about it which was discomfiting to a man who felt that he was giving rein to a noble sentiment The registrar, as he pocketed his fee, and shook hands in congratulation, assured him it was efficacious. It took place, of course, in Annette’s bedroom, but it was done with so much delicacy that not even the landlady suspected it. The registrar and his assistant passed to her mind as medical men called to the bedside of the patient.
Paul sat for half an hour after they had gone with Annette’s hand in his, and then, seeing that she had fallen asleep, softly withdrew himself. He strolled to the common, and there, wading through gorse, he found the doctor who had attended her from the time of their arrival.
‘Well, Mr. Armstrong,’ said the medico cheerfully, ‘how’s the patient?’
‘Better, I think,’ said Paul. ‘But, doctor, tell me—what made you take so gloomy a view a week ago? Don’t you think she’ll mend?’
‘Mend, my dear sir? said the doctor. ‘Of course she’ll mend. You’ll have her on her feet again in a week or two. She’s never been in danger for a moment.’
‘But didn’t you say a week ago——’