'You are right. How unfortunate it is!'
'So, my darling and I have met but to part again.'
Mary heard all this with more dismay than she dared exhibit just then, or trust herself to speak about, and it was with a mingled sense of joy she found herself pledged, before Mrs. Deroubigne, to be Leslie Colville's future wife, and saw flashing on her engaged finger the same diamond ring he had brought for her acceptance on that eventful day at Birkwoodbrae, for then, as now, Mary Wellwood was the one woman in the world for him. 'Whether our passion be prudent,' says Hawley Smart, 'whether the woman we have asked to tread life's path with us is likely to be approved in our maturer years, we reck little. She is the one woman, so far as we are concerned just now, and has she not pledged herself to be so always?'
But no doubt of himself or of his choice came into the heart of Colville. She had already been tried like gold in the fire; and he was yet to be further tried to an extent he little expected.
When the time came to depart, Mary left Mrs. Deroubigne with a heart too full of regard and gratitude for utterance in words. She could only sob on her ample and motherly breast; and Colville, when conveying her in a cab to that home which he had resolved she must change for one more suitable, heard of its locality with sorrow and dismay, and with emotions very different from those of Sir Redmond Sleath when he obtained the address of Ellinor.
'Paddington—Paddington Green! My Heaven, how came you to select such a place?' he exclaimed.
'Through the guard of the train. We asked his advice,' replied Mary, simply.
'This is intolerable! Such a hole—such a den—such a locality! You must quit it without delay,' he added, as the only homes he knew were in Mayfair, Tyburnia, and Belgravia: and though his heart was full of joy the first genuine laugh that escaped him was when he heard the address he was to inquire for.
'Mrs. Seraphina Fubsby! Good heavens, where did she pick up such a name?'
Mary had no time then to inform him that the good woman was fully entitled to another. She was too full of her own thoughts, and, though the fog of that horrible London November day had deepened and darkened all around her, in her heart there seemed sunshine now!