Meanwhile, Clement was making Ferdinand go over with him Edgar’s words about his marriage. They had all been written down immediately after his death, and had been given to Felix with the certificates of the marriage and birth and of the divorce, and they were now no doubt with other documents and deeds in the strong-box at Vale Leston Priory. Fernan could only repeat the words which had been burnt in on his memory, and promise to hunt up the evidence of the form and manner of the dissolution of the marriage at Chicago. Like Clement himself, he very much doubted whether the allegation would not break down in some important point, but he wished Gerald to be assured that if the worst came to the worst, he would never be left destitute, since that first meeting--the baptism, and the receiving him from the dying father--amounted to an adoption sacred in his eyes. Then, seeing how worn-out Clement looked, he abetted Sibby and Geraldine, in shutting their patient safe up in his bedroom, not to be “mislested” any more that night, said Sibby. So he missed the rush of the return. First came the two sober sisters, Anna and Emilia, only sorry that Aunt Cherry had not seen the lovely sea, the exquisite twinkle of silvered waves as the moon rose, and then the outburst of coloured lights, taking many forms, and the brilliant fireworks darting to and fro, describing curves, bursting and scattering their sparks. Emilia had, however, begun by the anxious question-- “Nan, what is it with Gerald?” “I don’t quite know. I suspect Dolores has somehow teased him, though it is not like her.” “Then there is something in it?” “I can’t help believing so, but I don’t believe it has come to anything.” “And is she not a most disagreeable girl! Those black eyebrows do look so sullen and thunderous.” “Oh no, Emmie, I thought so at first, but she can’t help her eyebrows; and when you come to know her there is a vast deal in her--thought, and originality, and purpose. I am sure it has been good for Gerald. He has seemed more definite and in earnest lately, less as if he were playing with everything, with all views all round.” “But his spirits are so odd!--so merry and then so grave.” “That is only during these last few days, and I fancy there must be some hitch--perhaps about Dolores’ father, and we are all in such haste.” Emilia did not pursue the subject. She had never indulged in the folly of expecting any signs of actual love from her cousin. She had always known that the family regarded any closer bond as impossible; but she had been always used to be his chief confidante, and she missed his attention, but she would not own this even to herself, go she talked of her hospital schemes with much zest, and how she should spend her outings at a favourite sisterhood. “For,” said she, “I am tired of luxury.”