what a difference having you makes to me! If it
wasn't for you, I don't know how I could face it."

For a moment she clung a little closer to him. He
felt her trembling with a wave of emotion to which
he had no present clue. "Oh, Jervis -- dear Jervis,
is that true?" she asked piteously.

"Do you doubt it?" he whispered.

"Then there's something I want you to do for me."

"You know that there isn't anything in the world
you could ask me to do that I wouldn't do, Rose."

"I want you to marry me tomorrow," she said.
And then, as for a moment he remained silent, she
began to cry. "Oh, Jervis, do say yes -- unless you
very, very much want to say no!"

During the next forty-eight hours Sir Jacques
Robey settled what was to be done, when it should be
done, and how it was to be done.

Of the people concerned, it was perhaps Lady Blake
who seemed the most under his influence. She submitted
without a word to his accompanying her into
her son's bedroom, and it was in response to his insistent
command -- for it was no less -- that instead
of alluding to the tragic thing which filled all her
thoughts, she only spoke of the morrow's wedding,
and of her happiness in the daughter her son was
giving her.

It was Sir Jacques, too, who persuaded Mrs. Otway
to agree that an immediate marriage was the best of
all possible solutions for Rose as well as for Jervis;
and it was he, also, who suggested that Sir John
Blake should go over to the Deanery and make all
the necessary arrangements with Dr. Haworth.

[[259]]

p258 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p259w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p260

v?