"I must go and live alone, mother," she said. "I must go to London
and work. This life would be impossible to me now."
She would hear of nothing else. Her marriage was postponed; they
need say no more about it. If her mother would let her have a little
money, till she could support herself, she would be grateful; but
she must live apart. And so, after many tears it was decided. Olga
went by herself into lodgings, and Mrs. Hannaford accepted her
brother's invitation to Bryanston Square.
CHAPTER XIII
Piers Otway spent ten days in Yorkshire. His father was well, but
more than ever silent, sunk in prophetic brooding; Mrs. Otway kept
the wonted tenor of her life, apprehensive for the purity of the
Anglican Church (assailed by insidious papistry), and monologising
at large to her inattentive husband upon the godlessness of his
impenitent old age.
"Piers," said the father one day, with a twinkle in his eye, "I find
myself growing a little deaf. Your stepmother is fond of saying that
Providence sends blessings in disguise, and for once she seems to
have hit upon a truth."
On a glorious night of stars, he walked with his son up to the open
moor. A summer breeze whispered fitfully between the dark-blue vault
and the grey earth; there was a sound of water that leapt from the
bosom of the hills; deep answering to deep, infinite to infinite.
After standing silent for a while, Jerome Otway laid a hand on his
companion's shoulder, and muttered, "The creeds--the dogmas!"
They had two or three long conversations.
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