The next day was the last but one before my wedding, and at last the Cottage was ready for occupation.  So great was my lover’s desire to inhabit it that he had already moved his belongings over there from Damerstown and was sleeping there.  On the afternoon of that day he came for me to go with him to see and approve of what he had done.

He was so greatly excited about it that he did not notice my reluctance to go, or perhaps he was used to my way with him, which was surely the most grudging that ever lover had to endure.

I rather thought my grandmother might have forbidden it.  She had always been so particular about what a girl might not do and had not moved at all with the times in that respect.  But of course everything had been altered since Richard Dawson’s coming; and she only said to him not to keep me out too late as I was not over-strong.

I had thought we were going to walk, but when we had gone a little way down the avenue I saw drawn up to one side a very smart motor-brougham with a smart chauffeur on the box, and I wondered whose it might be.

“It is for you, darling,” my lover replied.  “Do you not like it, Bawn?  It is a surprise for you.”

I wished I could have thanked him better; but nothing gave me any pleasure.  He put me in and tucked me up in a warm rug.  It was, indeed, a most luxurious carriage, and it went like the wind.

“You give me too much,” I said for the thousandth time.

“And you give me too little,” he answered.  “I suppose you think that is how to keep me.  But I should love you just as much—­I could not love you more—­if you would be warmer to me.”

As we went along at a speed which made the familiar roads oddly strange, all the landmarks being slurred by the speed, I looked from one side of the road to the other.

My mind was full of Anthony Cardew’s messenger, the one he was so sure would break the web of lies in pieces.  I said to myself that of course he could not come in time and that if he could come it would be useless.  Even Anthony himself could have done nothing, since the secret was not one that we could bring into the open.  Still, the air seemed full of expectation.  We met very few vehicles, very few foot passengers, but at those we did meet I looked eagerly.  He had been very sure that his messenger would arrive in time.  And while I thrilled to that sense of expectation I felt guilty towards the man at my side, who was so generous a lover.  Even now his nearness to me in the carriage that was his gift filled me with repulsion and a forlorn, shameful sense, as though I had been the wife of one man and had been given to another.

The Cottage and its grounds were enclosed within a high wall.  There was a little gravel sweep running round in front of the hall door; but we left the carriage outside the green gates.  Within, it was the completest thing, and I had delighted in it when old Miss Verschoyle had lived there with a companion and a cat, a dog, and a cageful of canaries.  The Cottage was covered by a trellis.  There were half a dozen steps to the hall door, and a window at each side.  At one side of the little enclosure there was a trellis concealing, as I knew, a range of out-offices.  At the other side was a stable and coach-house.