The design was still something bolder than its execution, and if Bob did not propose that night it was certainly no fault of mine.  I saw him with Mrs. Lascelles on the terrace after dinner; but I had neither the heart nor the face to thrust myself upon them.  Everything was altered since Bob had shown me his hand; there were certain rules of the game which even I must now observe.  So I left him in undisputed possession of the perilous ground, and being in a heavy glow from the strong air of the glacier, went early to my room; where I lay long enough without a wink, but quite prepared for Bob, with news of his engagement, at every step in the corridor.

Next day was Sunday, and chiefly, I am afraid, because there was neither blind nor curtain to my dormer-window, and the morning sun streamed full upon my pillow, I got up and went to early service in the little tin Protestant Church.  It was wonderfully well attended.  Quinby was there, a head taller than anybody else, and some sizes smaller in heads.  The American bridegroom came in late with his “best girl.”  The late Vice Chancellor, with the peeled nose, and Mr. Belgrave Teale, fit for Church Parade, or for the afternoon act in one of his own fashion-plays, took round the offertory bags, into which Mr. Justice Sankey (in race-course checks) dropped gold.  It was not the sort of service at which one cares to look about one, but I was among the early comers, and I could not help it.  Mrs. Lascelles, however, was there before me, whereas Bob Evers was not there at all.  Nevertheless, I did not mean to walk back with her until I saw her walking very much alone, a sort of cynosure even on the way from church, though humble and grave and unconscious as any country maid.  I watched her with the rest, but in a spirit of my own.  Some subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob.  Had he really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him?  A new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came up.

“I didn’t see you in church,” she remarked, in her own natural fashion, when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations.

“I am afraid you wouldn’t expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t, but I suppose,” added Mrs. Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) key, “I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me.  I can’t help it if you are, Captain Clephane.  I am not really a religious person.  I have not flown to that extreme as yet.  But it has been a comfort to me, sometimes; and so, sometimes, I go.”

It was very simply said, but with a sigh at the end that left me wondering whether she was in any new need of spiritual solace.  Did she already find herself in the dilemma in which I had imagined her, and was it really a dilemma to her?  New hopes began to chase my fears, and were gaining upon them when a flannel suit on the sunlit steps caused a temporary check:  there was Bob waiting for us, his hands in his pockets, a smile upon his face, yet in the slope of his shoulders and the carriage of his head a certain indefinable but very visible attention and intent.