At last, however, the thunderbolt fell. It was a week after the funeral, and they had reached dessert. Clare sometimes stayed with them while they smoked, and, as a rule, conversation was not very general. To-night, however, she rose to go. Her black suited her; her dark hair, her dark eyes, the dark trailing clouds of her dress--it was magnificently sombre against the firelight and the shine of the electric lamps on the silver. But Harry's "Wait a moment, Clare, I want to talk," called her back, and she stood by the door looking over her shoulder at him. Then when she saw from his glance that it was a matter of importance, she came back slowly again towards him. "Another family council?" said Garrett rather impatiently. "We have had a generous supply lately." "I'm afraid this is imperative," said Harry. "I am sorry to bother you, Clare, but this seems to me the best time." "Oh, any time suits me," she said indifferently, sitting down reluctantly. "But if it's household affairs, I should think that we need hardly keep Garrett and Robin." "It is something that concerns us all four," said Harry. "I am going to be married!" It had been from the beginning of things a Trojan dictum that the revealing of emotion was the worst of gaucheries--Clare, Garrett, and Robin himself had been schooled in this matter from their respective cradles; and now the lesson must be put into practice. For Robin, of course, it was no revelation at all, but he dared not look at his aunt; he understood a little what it must mean to her. To those that watched her, however, nothing was revealed. She stood by the fire, her hands at her side, her head slightly turned towards her brother. "Might I ask," she said quietly, "the name of the fortunate lady?" "Miss Bethel!" "Miss Bethel!" Garrett sprang to his feet. "Harry, you must be joking! You can't mean it! Not the daughter of Bethel at the Point--the madman!--the----" "Please, Garrett," said Harry, "remember that she has promised to be my wife. I am sorry, Clare----" He turned round to his sister. But she had said nothing. She pulled a chair from the table and sat down, quietly, without obvious emotion. "It is a little unexpected," she said. "But really if we had considered things it was obvious enough. It is all of a piece. Robin tried for Breach of Promise, the Bethels in the house before father has been buried for three days--the policy and traditions of the last three hundred years upset in three weeks."