"
"No," said Mrs. Graves, "that is just what one can't do! I didn't
doubt that it would come right, I guessed what Maud felt; but you
had to find the way to her yourself. I was sure of Maud, you see;
but I was not quite sure of you. It does not do to try experiments,
dear Howard, with forces as strong as love; I knew that if I told
you how things stood, you would have felt bound out of courtesy and
kindness to speak, and that would have been no good. If it is
illegal to help a man to commit suicide, it is worse, it is wicked
to push a man into marriage; but I am a very happy woman now--so
happy that I am almost afraid."
Howard talked over his plans with Mrs. Graves; there seemed no sort
of reason to defer his wedding. He told her, too, that he had a
further plan. There was a system at Beaufort by which, after a
certain number of years' service, a Fellow could take a year off
duty, without affecting his seniority or his position. "I am going
to do this," he said. "I do not think it is unwise. I am too old, I
think, both to make Maud's acquaintance as I wish, and to keep my
work going at the same time. It would be impossible. So I will
settle down here, if you will let me, and try to understand the
place and the people; and then if it seems well, I will go back to
Cambridge in October year, and go on with my work. I hope you will
approve of that?"
"I do entirely approve," said Mrs. Graves. "I will make over to you
at once what you will in any case ultimately inherit--and I believe
your young lady is not penniless either? Well, money has its uses
sometimes.
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