"I didn't find it ghastly," he chuckled; "but then I wasn't at Henley. It was my wedding day."
"Lucky is the bridegroom that the rain rains on seems to be your version of the proverb," chirruped his companion.
"We've been lucky enough, sun or no sun," he said, looking across at his wife, whose lovely face wore a decidedly bored expression.
She was being worried by the peer, who, on the "if-you-want-a-thing-well-done-do-it-yourself" principle, was vaunting his own attitude towards the agricultural question.
"I never had such a wretched time," went on the beauty, "we were moored higher up last year, by the island, near where you are now. But it wasn't all the rain, it was poor Kelly's accident—you knew him, Basil Kelly? Drowned, poor fellow, in the dark—canoe washed ashore in the morning."
"Hush," exclaimed Sir Harry, looking across the table and lowering his voice. "I never knew the poor fellow, but my wife did; they were boy and girl chums for years. He was master at the Grammar School near her, and a capital oar."
"That's what I couldn't make out. Did you see what the papers said?"
"The papers were purposely kept from us. It was too deplorable a subject to be mooted on our wedding day."
"Did she ever know?"
"Yes, later, and bore it very well. She was indignant at the suggestion of suicide, but has never alluded to the subject since."