"Is it the best to send me away when I love you?" "I'm not sending you away; I'm only keeping you out of the reach of silly tongues." "What do I care for them? What does it all matter if we love?" "It won't matter for more than two or three days. After that, we'll go to Italy." "Then I shall stay in Brighton by your side until the permit arrives. I will never go to Hampstead again, so help me God!" "Oh, but you mustn't swear! Let's talk about it after lunch, dearest girl. I want just to look at you and see you happy. Do you know you're frightfully pretty, Maryska?" She flushed with pleasure upon that. Many a man had called her pretty in the old days; but she shrank from their words then, knowing well what they meant. "_He_ used to say that it would be so, if ever I loved a man. I have been so lonely since he died, and that has made my face sad. Now it is different. I do not mean to be sad any more. I shall go to Italy, and we will laugh in the sun together. Cannot it be to-day, Harry? Here is the sea, and there are the ships. Let us take one and sail away! We can think of the priest in France, where there are many who will be glad of our money. Will you not please me, _sauvage bête_? Then take me upon the ship immediately." He could not answer it. The problem became more embarrassing every hour, and when lunch was done, and they were out on the parade together, it began to seem beyond his wit altogether. Not for a kingdom would he have brought tears to those bright eyes again. How prettily she babbled at his side; how quick, how clever, how beautiful she was! A pride of possession prevailed above all prudence, and drove him far from considered resolutions. He was content to go, hand in hand with her--God knew whither! In the end, it all came back to the priest. Let them see the priest! He knew but one priest in Brighton, and that was the excellent Father Healy, with whom he had fraternised at his club. Divine inspiration. Let them call upon him. VI Father Maurice Healy lived up at the back of the town in an old windmill, skilfully transformed and built about so that it had become a veritable bungalow, with more than one pleasant room and a little chapel which his lady friends declared was too divine for words. He had been smoking his afternoon cigar, when the amazing pair burst in upon him, and never in all his life had he laid down good tobacco to listen to a tale so wonderful! "Ye'll have to wait," he said dryly. "I've no power to marry ye at all as the State understands the term. Ye'll get a special licence, and then come to me. 'Tis wise advice, my dear, that ye should go back to your friends in London until things can be put straight. Make up your mind to that. I'm no better off in securing you to legal marriage than any man ye may stop in the street. Mr. Lassett knows that well, and he'll have told ye as much."