It wanted but five days to the wedding.

Hitherto it had been a game of skill, now it was a game of chance; and every morning he wished it was evening, every evening he wished it was morning.

The day Raby came back from Eastbank he dined at home, and, in an unguarded moment, said something or other, on which Mrs. Little cross-examined him so swiftly and so keenly that he stammered, and let out Grace Carden was on the point of marriage.

“Marriage, while my son is alive!” said Mrs. Little, and looked from him to Jael Dence, at first with amazement, and afterward with a strange expression that showed her mind was working.

A sort of vague alarm fell upon the other two, and they waited, in utter confusion, for what might follow.

But the mother was not ready to suspect so horrible a thing as her son’s death.  She took a more obvious view, and inveighed bitterly against Grace Carden.

She questioned Raby as to the cause, but it was Jael who answered her.  “I believe nobody knows the rights of it but Miss Carden herself.”

“The cause is her utter fickleness; but she never really loved him.  My poor Henry!”

“Oh yes, she did,” said Raby.  “She was at death’s door a few months ago.”

“At death’s door for one man, and now going to marry another!”

“Why not?” said Raby, hard pushed; “she is a woman.”

“And why did you not tell me till now?” asked Mrs. Little, loftily ignoring her brother’s pitiable attempt at a sneer.

Raby’s reply to this was happier.

“Why, what the better are you for knowing it now?  We had orders not to worry you unnecessarily.  Had we not, Jael?”

“That is all very well, in some things.  But, where my son is concerned, pray never keep the truth from me again.  When did she break off with Henry—­or did he quarrel with her?”

“I have no idea.  I was not in the country.”

“Do you know, dear?”

“No, Mrs. Little.  But I am of your mind.  I think she could not have loved Mr. Henry as she ought.”

“When did you see her last?”

“I could not say justly, but it was a long while ago.”

Mrs. Little interpreted this that Jael had quarreled with Grace for her fickleness, and gave her a look of beaming affection; then fell into a dead silence, and soon tears were seen stealing down her cheek.

“But I shall write to her,” said she, after a long and painful silence.

Mr. Raby hoped she would do nothing of the kind.

“Oh, I shall not say much.  I shall put her one question.  Of course she knows why they part.”

Next morning Jael Dence asked Mr. Raby whether the threatened letter must be allowed to go.

“Of course it must,” said Raby.  “I have gone as far off the straight path as a gentleman can.  And I wish we may not repent our ingenuity.  Deceive a mother about her son! what can justify it, after all?”