‘See what deceits love sows in honest minds!’
‘It would be a humiliation to you at present that I could not bear if a marriage between us were made public; an inconvenience without any compensating advantage.’
‘I am so glad you assume it without my setting it before you! Now I know you are not only good and true, but politic and trustworthy.’
‘Well, then, here is our covenant. My lady swears to marry me; I, in return for such great courtesy, swear never to compromise her by intruding at Welland House, and to keep the marriage concealed till I have won a position worthy of her.’
‘Or till I request it to be made known,’ she added, possibly foreseeing a contingency which had not occurred to him.
‘Or till you request it,’ he repeated.
‘It is agreed,’ murmured Lady Constantine,
XVI
After this there only remained to be settled between them the practical details of the project.
These were that he should leave home in a couple of days, and take lodgings either in the distant city of Bath or in a convenient suburb of London, till a sufficient time should have elapsed to satisfy legal requirements; that on a fine morning at the end of this time she should hie away to the same place, and be met at the station by St. Cleeve, armed with the marriage license; whence they should at once proceed to the church fixed upon for the ceremony; returning home independently in the course of the next two or three days.