"I shall be surely back to-morrow," he said, "or, if not, the day after, in heaps of time. Thank Heaven, one hasn't to get up in the middle of the night to get married nowadays!"
"And suppose Mr. Branbridge dies?"
"Alive or dead I mean to be married on Thursday!" John answered, lighting a cigar and unfolding the Times.
At Peasmarsh station we said "good-bye," and he got out, and I saw him ride off; I went on to London, where I stayed the night.
When I got home the next afternoon, a very wet one, by the way, my sister greeted me with—
"Where's Mr. Charrington?"
"Goodness knows," I answered testily. Every man, since Cain, has resented that kind of question.
"I thought you might have heard from him," she went on, "as you're to give him away to-morrow."
"Isn't he back?" I asked, for I had confidently expected to find him at home.
"No, Geoffrey,"—my sister Fanny always had a way of jumping to conclusions, especially such conclusions as were least favourable to her fellow-creatures—"he has not returned, and, what is more, you may depend upon it he won't. You mark my words, there'll be no wedding to-morrow."