Archer made no comment on this, and Mrs. Welland continued:  “But we do most thoroughly appreciate your persuading Ellen to give up the idea.  Her grandmother and her uncle Lovell could do nothing with her; both of them have written that her changing her mind was entirely due to your influence—­in fact she said so to her grandmother.  She has an unbounded admiration for you.  Poor Ellen—­she was always a wayward child.  I wonder what her fate will be?”

“What we’ve all contrived to make it,” he felt like answering.  “If you’d all of you rather she should be Beaufort’s mistress than some decent fellow’s wife you’ve certainly gone the right way about it.”

He wondered what Mrs. Welland would have said if he had uttered the words instead of merely thinking them.  He could picture the sudden decomposure of her firm placid features, to which a lifelong mastery over trifles had given an air of factitious authority.  Traces still lingered on them of a fresh beauty like her daughter’s; and he asked himself if May’s face was doomed to thicken into the same middle-aged image of invincible innocence.

Ah, no, he did not want May to have that kind of innocence, the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience!

“I verily believe,” Mrs. Welland continued, “that if the horrible business had come out in the newspapers it would have been my husband’s death-blow.  I don’t know any of the details; I only ask not to, as I told poor Ellen when she tried to talk to me about it.  Having an invalid to care for, I have to keep my mind bright and happy.  But Mr. Welland was terribly upset; he had a slight temperature every morning while we were waiting to hear what had been decided.  It was the horror of his girl’s learning that such things were possible—­but of course, dear Newland, you felt that too.  We all knew that you were thinking of May.”

“I’m always thinking of May,” the young man rejoined, rising to cut short the conversation.

He had meant to seize the opportunity of his private talk with Mrs. Welland to urge her to advance the date of his marriage.  But he could think of no arguments that would move her, and with a sense of relief he saw Mr. Welland and May driving up to the door.

His only hope was to plead again with May, and on the day before his departure he walked with her to the ruinous garden of the Spanish Mission.  The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes; and May, who was looking her loveliest under a wide-brimmed hat that cast a shadow of mystery over her too-clear eyes, kindled into eagerness as he spoke of Granada and the Alhambra.

“We might be seeing it all this spring—­even the Easter ceremonies at Seville,” he urged, exaggerating his demands in the hope of a larger concession.

“Easter in Seville?  And it will be Lent next week!” she laughed.

“Why shouldn’t we be married in Lent?” he rejoined; but she looked so shocked that he saw his mistake.