“She would make me wait till you came back, and you’d have to come back, Hugh, because there is always Hurst Dormer.  There’s no way out for me, none.  If only—­only you were married; that is the only thing that would have saved me!”

“But I’m not!”

She sighed.  “If only you were, if only you could say to her, ’I can’t ask Marjorie to marry me, because I am already married!’ It sounds rubbish, doesn’t it, Hugh; but if it were only true!”

“Supposing—­I did say it?”

“Oh, Hugh, but—­” She looked up at him quickly.  “But it would be a lie!”

“I know, but lies aren’t always the awful things they are supposed to be—­if one told a lie to help a friend, for instance, such a lie might be forgiven, eh?”

“But—­” She was trembling; she looked eagerly into his eyes, into her cheeks had come a flush, into her eyes the brightness of a new, though as yet vague, hope.  “It—­it sounds so impossible!”

“Nothing is actually impossible.  Listen, little maid.  She sent me here to you to talk sense, as she put it.  That meant she sent me here to ask you to marry me, and I meant to do it.  I think perhaps you know why”—­he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it—­“but I shan’t now, I never shall.  Little girl, we’re going to be what we’ve always been, the best and truest of friends, and I’ve got to find a way to help you and Tom—­”

“Hugh, if you told her that you were married, and not free, she wouldn’t give another thought to opposing Tom and me—­it is only because she wants me to marry you that she opposes Tom!  Oh, Hugh, if—­if—­if you could, if it were possible!” She was trembling with excitement, and the sweet colour was coming and going in her cheeks.

“Supposing I did it?” he said, and spoke his thoughts aloud.  “Of course it would be a shock to her, perhaps she wouldn’t believe!”

“She would believe anything you said...”

“It is rather a rotten thing to do,” he thought, “yet....”  He looked at the bright, eager face, it would make her happy; he knew that what she said was true—­Lady Linden would not oppose Tom Arundel if marriage between Marjorie and himself was out of the question.  It would be making the way clear for her:  it would be giving her happiness, doing her the greatest service that he could.  Of his own sacrifice, his own disappointment he thought not now; realisation of that would come later.

At first it seemed to him a mad, a nonsensical scheme, yet it was one that might so easily be carried out.  If one doubt was left as to whether he would do it, it was gone the next moment.

“Hugh, would you do—­would you do this for me?”

“There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you, little maid,” he said, “and if I can help you to your happiness I am going to do it.”

She crept closer to him; she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and held his hand in hers.

“Tell me just what you will say.”