The quickest way of being married was in a registry office, but would Evelyn look upon a civil marriage as sufficient?  Once the civil marriage was an accomplished fact, she could be married afterwards in Church, even in a Catholic church; he would go there if it pleased her to go.  Besides, Evelyn really looked upon marriage more as a civil than as a religious obligation.  His thoughts continued to chatter, keeping him up late, till long after midnight, and awaking him early.  And the sun seemed to him to have dawned on his wedding day.  But even if they were to be married in a registry office a best man would be required.  So his thoughts went to Harding, whom he knew to be in London.  But Harding would be busy with his writing until the afternoon, and Owen strode about Bond Street, visiting the shops of various picture dealers, welcoming any acquaintance whom he happened to meet, walking to the end of the street with him, and spending the last hour—­from three to four—­in the National Gallery, whither he had gone to see some new acquisitions.  But the new pictures did not interest him.  “My thoughts are elsewhere.”

And turning from the new Titian, it seemed to him that he might drive to Victoria Street; Harding’s work must be over for the day.

“My dear Harding, you don’t mind my interrupting you?” And he envied his friend’s interest in his manuscripts when the writer put them away.

“You are not disturbing me; my secretary didn’t come to-day, and everything is habit.  I can no longer write except by dictation.”

“If I had known that I would have called in the morning.”

“Again some drama in which Evelyn Innes is concerned,” Harding said to himself.

“Harding, I have come to ask your advice; you’ll give me the very best.  But you will have to hear the whole story.”

“Well, I am a story-teller, and like to hear stories.”

Owen told him how he had met Ulick Dean at Innes’, and had invited him to stop at Berkeley Square, and how gradually the idea that he could make use of Ulick in order to tempt Evelyn back to the stage had come into his mind.  Anything to save her from religion, from Monsignor.

Owen caught Harding looking at him from under his shaggy eyebrows, and anger had begun to colour his cheeks when Harding said: 

“Don’t you remember, Asher, coming here a couple of years ago, and—­”

“Yes, I know.  You predicted that Ulick Dean and I would become friends, and you are right; we did.”

“And you preferred that Evelyn should be his mistress rather than that she shall go over to Monsignor?”

“I am not ashamed to confess I did; anything seemed better—­but there is no use arguing the point.  What I have come to tell you is that rather than go away with him she tried to kill herself.”  And he told Harding the story.

“What an extraordinary story!  But nothing is extraordinary in human nature.  What we consider the normal never happens.  Nature’s course is always zigzag, and no one can predict a human action.”