Sir Edmund Grosse was not unwilling to dawdle under the shade of an old wall with Mrs. Delaport Green that Saturday evening in the country.

“I feel terribly responsible,” she said, in her thin eager little voice; “I am sure that boy is going to propose to my protege!”

“What boy?” asked Edmund, in a tone of indifference.

“Edgar Tonmore.”

“Is Edgar here, then?”

“Oh, no; it won’t be at once.  He has gone to Scotland, but he will be back before we leave London.”

“Really he is an excellent fellow.  I don’t see why you should be anxious.”

“But Molly is an orphan,” she said plaintively, eyeing him quickly as she spoke.

“Even so, orphans marry and live happily ever after.”

“But I’m not sure she will live happily.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think she cares for him.”

“Then I suppose she will refuse.”

“But people so often make mistakes.  I don’t think dear Molly knows her own mind, and it is so natural that she should not confide in me as I am in her mother’s place.”

“Leave things alone.  Edgar will find out if she likes him or not.”

“Will he? oh well, it’s a comfort that you take that view.”  And she then changed the topic, being of opinion that nothing more could be done with it.  But no doubt the effect produced in Edmund was an increase of interest in Molly’s affairs.  It would be exceedingly tiresome if she should marry this attractive but penniless boy, as he knew him to be, under the impression that she possessed enough money for them both.

Edmund had only that morning received certain intelligence of the whereabouts of young Akers, the son of the old stud-groom.

From Florence had come the information that Madame Danterre was supposed to be in failing health, and that she had been seldom seen to drive out of her secluded grounds this summer, whereas last year she used to go long distances in her old-fashioned English carriage in the evenings.  Thus it became a matter of thrilling interest whether the great fortune would pass to Molly before any evidence could be produced of the existence of the last will in which he so firmly believed.

“I believe the old sinner knows all about it, even if she hasn’t got it,” Grosse murmured to himself.

Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore.  Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel to prevent that affair going too easily.  But first he asked her why she did not go to church.

“I might say, why don’t you go yourself?” said Molly, “but I don’t mind telling you that I hardly ever do go.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the greyhound that was lying by her.  “I hate going to church.  None of it seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela.  My aunt used to say that we were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don’t like any clergymen.  I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman.”