Page:Out of due time, Ward, 1906.djvu/169

 PART II.

I.

morning we were up early to see the three men start. Father Duly was to go with Paul and George to the Congress.

I came down after the others, and found Mr. Sutcliffe standing by the door. "D'Etranges has mislaid the MS. of his address for the Congress at the last moment," he said. "Marcelle is hunting for it; he says he knows it is in his bedroom. Miss Fairfax, stay a moment"—he led me on to the terrace—"I want to beg your pardon for what I said the day we met in the train. I understand now. I know how happy you are. I am horribly ashamed of myself. Do you think you can forget, really forget all I said? I was ill and morbid. I understand Paul much better after this week. I was never so intimate with him before. May I? Will you let me congratulate you really and truly now?"

I looked up into his earnest dark eyes and smiled. But I think, I may be wrong, that something of the unconscious strain I was living in showed in my face; and then a sudden recollection of Mary's especial mistake made me colour.

"You don't really forgive me?" he pleaded.

"Indeed, indeed I do," I cried. "My own family made the same mistake—exactly the same mistake."

"I shall write and give you both an account of Paul at the Congress," he said. 159