Lord Raa himself looked as tired as before, and for the first half-hour he behaved as if he did not quite know what to do with himself for wretchedness and ennui.

Then the deeds were opened and spread out on a table, and though the gentlemen seemed to be trying not to discuss the contents aloud I could not help hearing some of the arrangements that had been made for the payment of my intended husband’s debts, and certain details of his annual allowance.

Looking back upon that ugly hour, I wonder why, under the circumstances, I should have been so wounded, but I remember that a sense of discomfort amounting to shame came upon me at sight of the sorry bargaining.  It seemed to have so little to do with the spiritual union of souls, which I had been taught to think marriage should be.  But I had no time to think more about that before my father, who had signed the documents himself in his large, heavy hand, was saying.

“Now, gel, come along, we’re waiting for your signature.”

I cannot remember that I read anything.  I cannot remember that anything was read to me.  I was told where to sign, and I signed, thinking what must be must be, and that was all I had to do with the matter.

I was feeling a little sick, nevertheless, and standing by the tire with one foot on the fender, when Lord Raa came up to me at the end, and said in his drawling voice: 

“So it’s done.”

“Yes, it’s done,” I answered.

After a moment he talked of where we were to live, saying we must of course pass most of our time in London.

“But have you any choice about the honeymoon,” he said, “where we should spend it, I mean?”

I answered that he would know best, but when he insisted on my choosing, saying it was my right to do so, I remembered that during my time in the Convent the one country in the world I had most desired to see was the Holy Land.

Never as long as I live shall I forget the look in his lordship’s grey eyes when I gave this as my selection.

“You mean Jerusalem—­Nazareth—­the Dead Sea and all that?” he asked.

I felt my face growing red as at a frightful faux pas, but his lordship only laughed, called me his “little nun,” and said that since I had been willing to leave the choice to him he would suggest Egypt and Italy, and Berlin and Paris on the way back, with the condition that we left Ellan for London on the day of our marriage.

After the party from Castle Raa had gone, leaving some of their family lace and pearls behind for the bride to wear at her wedding, and after Aunt Bridget had hoped that “that woman” (meaning Lady Margaret) didn’t intend to live at the Castle after my marriage, because such a thing would not fit in with her plans “at all, at all,” I mentioned the arrangements for the honeymoon, whereupon Betsy Beauty, to whom Italy was paradise, and London glimmered in an atmosphere of vermillion and gold, cried out as usual: