She did not attempt to gainsay him, but placed her hand in his, and a few minutes later they rose from their chairs, walking across the grass to the gate by which Jimmy had entered the park.  Bridget’s step was light, she hung upon his arm as they crossed the heath, the sun shone upon her and she looked as if she had not a care in the world.

“I must say ‘good-bye’ now,” said Jimmy, outside the garden gate.  “I shall see you to-morrow afternoon, but Sybil must come in the morning.”

“At last!” cried Bridget, with a smile.

“Well, I always told you she would come,” he answered.  “For the rest, I think your best plan will be to return to Golfney Place—­it won’t be for many days, you know.  Suppose I see Miller this evening and Sybil can bring the motor-car to drive you back.”

CHAPTER XXV

OPEN CONFESSION

Sybil Clynesworth made an unconditional surrender.  It was true that, never having seen Bridget, she failed to understand Jimmy’s facile satisfaction.  She certainly still considered that he was ridiculously credulous.  But while she would have been prepared to go to great lengths in order to prevent her brother from entering into what she could not help regarding as an unsuitable marriage, she saw that he had made up his mind.

The idea of living on unfriendly terms with him or his wife appeared preposterous, whereas a single false step at this critical period might easily make Bridget her enemy for life.  So Sybil expressed her willingness to fall in with Jimmy’s wishes; she would go to Blackheath in the motor-car early the following morning, inconvenient as the expedition would be; and she would bring Miss Rosser back to Golfney Place.

When the time came, however, Sybil set out with considerable nervousness, and her legs threatened to give way beneath her as she got out of the motor-car at the garden gate.  The first sight of Bridget at least put an end to any surprise at Jimmy’s infatuation, and when she came forward with both hands held out, kissing her visitor’s cheek without the slightest hesitation, the way was half won to Sybil’s accessible heart.

“You see, you are Jimmy’s sister,” said Bridget, with a charming air of entreaty, and in spite of her former equivocal opinion of Miss Rosser, Sybil could not refrain from answering—­

“My dear, you must let me be yours.”

Bridget, it appeared, was to return to lunch in Upper Grosvenor Street, and Jimmy, having already spoken to Miller, would escort her to No. 5, Golfney Place during the afternoon.  It was while he was absent on this errand that Sybil sat down to write to Carrissima, sending the note to Grandison Square by hand.  Since the reproachful letter which Sybil had received on the morning after the interview with Mark Driver, it seemed too soon to carry the epoch-marking news in person.  So she explained that Jimmy was engaged to be married, and admitted her own more favourable impression of her prospective sister-in-law; she told Carrissima that Bridget had returned to Golfney Place, and added that the wedding was to take place at once.