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 Something in her tone filled him with a sense of impropriety. She was gripping the edges of the chimney-piece and staring down into the grate. Her knuckles stood out white and strained.

"Herbert, Richard Evans wrote to me again yesterday. To-day I answered him. I—I am going to be married."

Sitting on the Chesterfield, Herbert scrutinised his boots. He heard his voice say:

"Who is going to see about the furniture?"

His mind grappled with something immeasurably far away.

Cicely repeated, "I am going to be married."

Suddenly it flashed across him: he was full of angry light.

"Married!" he shouted, "married—you!"

"I thought it was too late," she whispered, "till quite lately. Then, when mother went, everything was broken up; this move came—all my life I seem to have been tied up, fastened on to things and people. Why, even the way the furniture was arranged at No. 17 held me so that I couldn't get away. The way the chairs went in the sitting-room.