Prelice clutched his head, but his hair was too closely cropped for him to grip. "I'm to be best man," he said feebly, and found a delight in torturing himself.
"Oh! Has Ned selected you for that post?"
"He did; when we were at Eton."
"I see. Then he was engaged when at Eton. How precocious!"
The young man groaned, and glanced at her despairingly, quite unable to understand her moods. Lately she had been sad, now her eyes were dancing with merriment. "I am glad you are happy," he said in a surly tone, for this mystery of her engagement tortured him.
"I am," she assented swiftly, "and for three reasons."
"May I hear them?"
"Certainly. In the first place, you and Ned will find out who killed my uncle and poor old Steve, so as to clear my character. In the second place, Lady Sophia is coming over to-day, and thus begins the necessary whitewashing for me to re-enter the world. And in the third place," she ended seriously, "throughout all this trouble I have had a firm conviction that God would help me. He has helped me by saving my life from a legal death, and He will help me to clear my character. Some day—perhaps in the near future—there won't be a single stain on my name. Now don't speak," she held up her hand; "you are about to say that there is not a stain now. But there is. To remove it, I trust in God first, and in you second."
"What about Ned?" asked Prelice restlessly.
"Oh, in Ned also," she rejoined, and looked at him quietly. As he made no observation—and he could not out of sheer perplexity—she turned on her Louis Quinze heel. "I am going in to get ready for the visit of Lady Sophia," she said abruptly.