"How is it you play so with my feelings this evening?" she asked, the tears rushing to her eyes.
"I have not played with them that I know of. What do you mean, Mildred? You are growing fanciful."
She could not trust her voice to reply. William again broke into one of his favourite airs.
"I proposed that we should be married in London, amidst her friends," he said, when the few bars were brought to a satisfactory conclusion. "I thought she might prefer it. But she says she'd rather not."
"Amidst whose friends?" inquired Mildred, in amazement.
"Charlotte's. But in that case I suppose you could not have been bridesmaid. And there'd have been all the trouble of a journey beforehand."
"I bridesmaid!" exclaimed Mildred; and all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her brain as a faint suspicion of the terrible truth stole into it. "Bridesmaid to whom?"
William Arkell, unable to comprehend a word, stopped still and looked at her.
"You are dreaming, Mildred!" he exclaimed.
"What do you mean? Who is it you are going to marry?" she reiterated.