Laura was very silent during the first half of their homeward drive, but at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell by suddenly saying: "I want you to know—I feel I must tell you—that Oliver and I were married, in London, ten days ago. And I think—oh, Aunt Letty, I do think that he is happy—at last!"
She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell felt extraordinarily moved. This then was what Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like had felt too—too shy to tell her.
"I am very grateful to you for what you have done," she exclaimed, and held the younger woman's hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment.
That was all. But before they parted Laura gave his mother a message from Oliver. It was quite an unimportant message, simply that on his way home he meant to look in at The Chase.
"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little hesitatingly. And Oliver's mother smiled.
"Of course not, my dear—I'm glad he should! Perhaps you'd like to come back with him, and stay on for dinner?"
But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, vivid blushes, shook her head. "I think I ought to stay at home the first evening," she said, "and put Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I don't want Alice ever to feel jealous."
But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor little Alice! It would be strange indeed if the child did not feel a little jealous as time went on—if, that is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing which had come into her life.
It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Tropenell, after dealing with the various matters which had accumulated during her week's absence, had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. Lying on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, thinking over all that had happened, and all that was happening, to herself and to those she loved, Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, in a long flash which seemed to contain æons of sensation, she went through an amazing and terrifying experience!