“Carrie!” they heard Mrs. Morris call her sister after an interval, and her voice sounded faint and flat and unusual. There was the soft hissing of some whispered words outside and a muffled exclamation. Then Mrs. Wilder and Mrs. Morris and Betty came into the room. Mrs. Wilder came first, and Mrs. Morris with an alarmed face as if sheltering behind her. “We want to tell you something,” said Amanda. “Amanda and I are going to marry each other,” said Benham, standing in front of her. For an instant the others made no answer; they looked at each other. “BUT DOES HE KNOW?” Mrs. Morris said in a low voice. Amanda turned her eyes to her lover. She was about to speak, she seemed to gather herself for an effort, and then he knew that he did not want to hear her explanation. He checked her by a gesture. “I KNOW,” he said, and then, “I do not see that it matters to us in the least.” He went to her holding out both his hands to her. She took them and stood shyly for a moment, and then the watchful gravity of her face broke into soft emotion. “Oh!” she cried and seized his face between her hands in a passion of triumphant love and kissed him. And then he found himself being kissed by Mrs. Morris. She kissed him thrice, with solemnity, with thankfulness, with relief, as if in the act of kissing she transferred to him precious and entirely incalculable treasures. CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE SPIRITED HONEYMOON 1 It was a little after sunrise one bright morning in September that Benham came up on to the deck of the sturdy Austrian steamboat that was churning its way with a sedulous deliberation from Spalato to Cattaro, and lit himself a cigarette and seated himself upon a deck chair. Save for a yawning Greek sailor busy with a mop the first-class deck was empty.