With a groan, Sir Archibald cried:
"God help us, Bastin! What fools we were!"
Then with a weary upward look into Ralph's face, he rose to his feet, saying:
"I must be going. I've arranged to meet the lawyers in half-an-hour from now. Good-bye, dear fellow. I will come up to town to see you, or you must come down to see me, before the wind-up of the paper. Good-bye."
The two men wrung each other's hand, then parted.
Ten minutes later George Bullen and Rose arrived. Amazed to see his friend with an extraordinary beautiful girl, Ralph was presently listening to all the wonderful story of their meeting, etc.
Later on, when, for a moment or two, the two men were alone together, in the inner room, Ralph asked George what he proposed to do with the beautiful girl?
"There is but one thing I can do," he replied. "I must marry her, and that soon. It is no time, in the ordinary sense, to be thinking of 'marrying and giving in marriage,' yet, under the circumstances, I can do no other. I care for her already, as I never cared for any woman, and her affection for me is touching in its clingingness."
He smiled a little sadly, as he added:
"It is well that there is a little company of us here in London, Believers in God, and therefore believers in marriage."