"Ah!", said Hilda.
"He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to take place there, you know."
"Then nothing but shipwreck can save him."
"Nothing but—what a horrible idea! Don't you think they may be happy? I really think they may."
"There is not one of the elements that give people, when they commit the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. But he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his friends, his circumstances."
Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon an accidental phrase. She did not repeat it, she turned it over in her mind.
"You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What are you thinking about?"
"Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday, I thought him looking rather wretched."
A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes.
"He works so much too hard," she said. "It is an appalling waste. But he will offer himself up."