But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts. The all-important question had been put to her. She had not heard one word of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
The silence became alarming. This was the exact psychological moment in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue. But the Boy did not dash in.
Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question. Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly. The old clergyman peered at her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a tone of reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss Charteris listened carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the third finger of her left hand. As they did so, her thoughts wandered again. She was back in the garden with the Boy. He had caught her left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and tenderness. She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger separately. She looked down at it. The Professor's ring encircled it.
Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, en route for Brussels.