Of course I knew better than to hesitate a moment before burying myself in the booking-office, and it was not till the train drew up at the platform, that I obtrusively passed the pair with my Gladstone, and took the corner in a first-class smoking-carriage. I did this with as good an air of not seeing them as I could assume. I pride myself on my discretion, but if John were travelling alone I wanted his company. I had it. "Hullo, old man," came his cheery voice as he swung his bag into my carriage; "here's luck; I was expecting a dull journey!" "Where are you off to?" I asked, discretion still bidding me turn my eyes away, though I saw, without looking, that hers were red-rimmed. "To old Branbridge's," he answered, shutting the door and leaning out for a last word with his sweetheart. "Oh, I wish you wouldn't go, John," she was saying in a low, earnest voice. "I feel certain something will happen." "Do you think I should let anything happen to keep me, and the day after to-morrow our wedding-day?" "Don't go," she answered, with a pleading intensity which would have sent my Gladstone on to the platform and me after it. But she wasn't speaking to me. John Charrington was made differently; he rarely changed his opinions, never his resolutions. He only stroked the little ungloved hands that lay on the carriage door. "I must, May. The old boy's been awfully good to me, and now he's dying I must go and see him, but I shall come home in time for----" the rest of the parting was lost in a whisper and in the rattling lurch of the starting train. "You're sure to come?" she spoke as the train moved. "Nothing shall keep me," he answered; and we steamed out. After he had seen the last of the little figure on the platform he leaned back in his corner and kept silence for a minute. When he spoke it was to explain to me that his godfather, whose heir he was, lay dying at Peasmarsh Place, some fifty miles away, and had sent for John, and John had felt bound to go. "I shall be surely back to-morrow," he said, "or, if not, the day after, in heaps of time. Thank Heaven, one hasn't to get up in the middle of the night to get married nowadays!" "And suppose Mr. Branbridge dies?" "Alive or dead I mean to be married on Thursday!" John answered, lighting a cigar and unfolding the _Times_. At Peasmarsh station we said "good-bye," and he got out, and I saw him ride off; I went on to London, where I stayed the night. When I got home the next afternoon, a very wet one, by the way, my sister greeted me with-- "Where's Mr. Charrington?" "Goodness knows," I answered testily. Every man, since Cain, has resented that kind of question. "I thought you might have heard from him," she went on, "as you're to give him away to-morrow." "Isn't he back?" I asked, for I had confidently expected to find him at home.