Monsieur Le Vicomte turned round to her, with his foot midway between the pavement and the step of the hansom, and shouted at her again.
"What did you say it was, woman?"
"Why, Mrs. Romer's wedding-day, to be sure, sir; and no such wonder after all, I should say; and a lovely morning for the wedding it be, too."
Lucien D'Arblet put his hand vaguely up to his head, as though he had received a blow; she had escaped him, then, after all.
"So soon after the old man's death," he murmured, half aloud; "who could have expected it?"
"Well, sir, and soon it is, as you say," replied the ancient ex-housemaid, who had caught the remark; "but people do say as how Mr. Harlowe, my late master, wished it so, and of course Mrs. Romer, she were quite ready, so to speak, for the Captain had been a-courting her for ever so long, as we who lived in the house could have told."
The vicomte was fumbling at his breast-coat pocket, his face was as yellow as the rose in his button-hole.
"Where was the wedding to be? At Kew?"
"No, sir; at Saint Paul's church, in Wilton Crescent. Mrs. Romer would have it so, because that's the place of worship she used to go to when she lived here. You'd be in time to see them married now, sir, if you was to look sharp; it was to be at half-past eleven, and it's not that yet; my niece and a young friend has just started a-foot to go there. I let her go, because she'd never seen a grand wedding. I'd like to have gone myself, but, in course, we couldn't both be out of the house——"
The gentleman was listening no longer; he had sprung into his hansom.