“You know very well, Godfrey, that I have wished it for quite ten years.”
“And you know very well, Isobel, that I have wished it—well, ever since I understood what marriage was. How about to-morrow?” he exclaimed, after a pause.
She laughed, and shook her head.
“I believe, Godfrey, that some sort of license is necessary, and it is past post time. Also it would look scarcely decent; all these people would laugh at us. Also, as there is a good deal of property concerned, I must make some arrangements.”
“What arrangements?” he asked.
She laughed again. “That is my affair; you know I am a great supporter of Woman’s Rights.”
“Oh! I see,” he replied vaguely, “to keep it all free from the husband’s control, &c.”
“Yes, Godfrey, that’s it. What a business head you have. You should join the shipping firm after the war.”
Then they settled to be married on that day week, after which Isobel suggested that he should take up his abode at the Abbey House, where the clergyman, a bachelor, would be very glad to have him as a guest. When Godfrey inquired why, she replied blandly because his room was wanted for another patient, he being now cured, and that therefore he had no right to stop there.
“Oh! I see. How selfish of me,” said Godfrey, and went off to arrange matters with the clergyman, a friendly and accommodating young man, with the result that on this night once more he slept in the room he had occupied as a boy. For her part Isobel telephoned, first to her dressmaker, and secondly to the lawyer who was winding up her father’s estate, requesting these important persons to come to see her on the morrow.