Carlyon received her letter as he began his early
breakfast; and he tugged at his silver beard, while his penthouse brows
met.
The matter required the most careful consideration. He enormously
disliked to have to play the role of arbiter of fate, but he loved
Halcyone more than anything else in the world, and felt bound to use
what force he possessed to secure her happiness--or, if that looked too
difficult, which he admitted it did, he must try and save her from
further unnecessary pain.
He had the day before received John Derringham's letter written from
Wendover and which Mrs. Porrit had redirected, containing the news of
the intended wedding, and it had angered him greatly.
He blazed with indignation! His peerless one to be made to take a
mistress's place when any man should be proud to make her his honored
wife! "The brutal selfishness of men," he said to himself, not blaming
John Derringham in particular. "He ought to have gone off and left her
alone when he felt he was beginning to care, if he had not pluck enough
to stand the racket. But we are all the same--we must have what we want,
and the women must pay--confound us!"
He had never doubted but that, when he read the letter, Halcyone was
already his old pupil's wife--if indeed such a ceremony were legal, she
being under age.
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