He had never doubted but that, when he read the letter, Halcyone was already his old pupil’s wife—­if indeed such a ceremony were legal, she being under age.  And this thought added to his wrath, and he intended to look the matter up and see.  But, before he could do so, he got an evening paper and read a brief notice that John Derringham had met with a severe accident—­of what exact nature the press association had not yet learned—­and was lying in a critical condition at Wendover Park, the country seat of the “beautiful American society leader, Mrs. Vincent Cricklander,” with whose name rumor had already connected the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the most interesting manner, the paragraph added.

So Fate had stepped in and saved his pure night flower, after all!  But at what sort of price?  And Cheiron stared into space with troubled eyes.

He passed hours of anxious thought.  He never did anything in a hurry, and felt that now he must especially consider what would be his wisest course.

And then, this next morning, Halcyone’s letter had come.

It was very simple.  It told of Mrs. Anderton’s arrival at La Sarthe Chase and of her own return to London with her—­and then the real pith of it had crept out.  Had he heard any news of Mr. Derringham?  Because she had seen his writing upon a letter Mrs. Porrit was readdressing at the orchard house and, observing it was from London, she presumed he was there, and she hoped she should see him.

The Professor stopped abruptly here.

“What a woman it is, after all!” he exclaimed.  He himself had never noticed the postmark on John Derringham’s envelope!  Then he folded Halcyone’s pitiful little communication absently, and thought deeply.

Two things were evident.  Firstly, John Derringham had been disabled before the hour when he should have met his bride; and secondly, she was, when she wrote, unaware that he had had any accident at all.  She must thus be very unhappy and full of horrible anxiety—­his dear little girl!

But what courage and fortitude she showed, he mused on, not to give the situation away and lament even to him, her old friend.  She plainly intended to stand by the man she loved and never admit she had been going to marry him until he himself gave her leave.

“The one woman with a soul,” Cheiron muttered, and rubbed the mist away which had gathered in his eyes.

He revolved the situation over and over.  Halcyone must be made aware of the accident, if she had not already read of it in the morning papers; but she must not be allowed to do anything rash—­and as he got thus far in his meditations, a waiter knocked at the old-fashioned sitting-room door, and Halcyone herself brushed past him into the room.

She was deadly pale, and for a moment did not speak.