Sudden exultation leaped at Esther’s heart.

‘Oh!  I’m used to managing’ she told him confidently, and mentally resolved to buy herself, so soon as she was married, a black feather boa, such as she had coveted last winter.

Willoughby spent the remaining days of his holiday in thinking out and planning with Esther the details of his return to London and her own, the secrecy to be observed, the necessary legal steps to be taken, and the quiet suburb in which they would set up housekeeping.  And, so successfully did he carry out his arrangements, that within five weeks from the day on which he had first met Esther Stables, he and she came out one morning from a church in Highbury, husband and wife.  It was a mellow September day, the streets were filled with sunshine, and Willoughby, in reckless high spirits, imagined he saw a reflection of his own gaiety on the indifferent faces of the passersby.  There being no one else to perform the office, he congratulated himself very warmly, and Esther’s frequent laughter filled in the pauses of the day.

* * * * *

Three months later Willoughby was dining with a friend, and the hour-hand of the clock nearing ten, the host no longer resisted the guest’s growing anxiety to be gone.  He arose and exchanged with him good wishes and goodbyes.

‘Marriage is evidently a most successful institution,’ said he, half-jesting, half-sincere; ’you almost make me inclined to go and get married myself.  Confess now your thoughts have been at home the whole evening.’

Willoughby thus addressed turned red to the roots of his hair, but did not deny it.

The other laughed.  ‘And very commendable they should be,’ he continued, ‘since you are scarcely, so to speak, out of your honeymoon.’

With a social smile on his lips, Willoughby calculated a moment before replying, ‘I have been married exactly three months and three days.’  Then, after a few words respecting their next meeting, the two shook hands and parted—­the young host to finish the evening with books and pipe, the young husband to set out on a twenty minutes’ walk to his home.

It was a cold, clear December night following a day of rain.  A touch of frost in the air had dried the pavements, and Willoughby’s footfall ringing upon the stones re-echoed down the empty suburban street.  Above his head was a dark, remote sky thickly powdered with stars, and as he turned westward Alpherat hung for a moment ‘comme le point sur un i’, over the slender spire of St John’s.  But he was insensible to the worlds about him; he was absorbed in his own thoughts, and these, as his friend had surmised, were entirely with his wife.  For Esther’s face was always before his eyes, her voice was always in his ears, she filled the universe for him; yet only four months ago he had never seen her, had never heard her name.  This was the curious part of it—­here in December he found himself the husband of a girl who was completely dependent upon him not only for food, clothes, and lodging, but for her present happiness, her whole future life; and last July he had been scarcely more than a boy himself, with no greater care on his mind than the pleasant difficulty of deciding where he should spend his annual three weeks’ holiday.