He said now, in response to Letitia's query why he absented himself so much, that he was getting old and had to go to bed early. "For beauty sleep, you know," he added, looking at her with his eyes smiling behind his glasses. "You don't need that, do you, Tishy? Hullo, there's the rain!" The first drops, swollen, slow, and reluctant, spotted the pavement. The air felt curiously damp, and had a languid softness in its touch. Letitia looked up at the low-hanging clouds, and a drop fell on her cheek. "Yes, there it is," she said. "Get in the carriage and come home to dinner, John. No one will be there--just ourselves." He said he had an engagement for dinner. "Well, then, get in the carriage and drive with me down to South Park, where I have a message to give a scrub-woman. I've got something I want to say to you." He obediently entered, and the coachman turned the horses' heads in the direction of South Park. The afternoon had suddenly darkened as if a pall had been unfurled across the sky. The streets without had burst into a forest of umbrellas, already shining, and agitated with curiously unsteady movements as the bearers hurried this way and that. The rain was still falling slowly, but the drops were large. A little flurry of wind lashed the window with them as the coupé made its way through the mêlée of vehicles and over the car-tracks at Lotta's Fountain. An eery, yellowish light seemed to be diffusing itself from the horizon, and to have crept along under the dark cope of the storm. Letitia leaned forward, looking out at the figures of the passers-by, butting against the wind with lowered umbrellas, and then jerking them aside and giving a scared look up and down for a threatening car. Gault, leaning back, could see her profile clearly defined against the pale square of the window. On the little seat in front of them she had dropped all her parcels, and a bunch of violets that she had thrust into a convenience for that purpose filled the carriage with its soft and subtle fragrance. Outside, the bells of the cars clanged furiously, and at moments the rain was dashed against the window and then diverted. "Well, Tishy," he said, "what's the communication you're going to make? As far as I know, when a lady speaks solemnly of having an important matter to impart, it only means one thing." "What's that?" asked Letitia, without responding to the raillery of his tone. "That she is going to be married." "Well, that's just it," she answered, and continued to look out of the window. "What?" Gault leaned forward and tried to see what her face revealed. It was handsome as ever, calm and imperturbable. "That's just it," she repeated, turning toward him and letting her eyes dwell gravely on his. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about." "Tishy!" he ejaculated. "Why, you amaze me!" "Why should I?" she queried. "Everybody gets married sometime or other." "I know, but--who is it?" "Tod McCormick."