Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/131

Rh altogether, buried under the ruins of his fortune, and leaving next to nothing, had died a few weeks before.

"So she has come out to marry George Gravener?" I demanded. "Wouldn't it have been prettier of him to have saved her the trouble?"

"Hasn't the House just met?" said Adelaide. Then she added: "I gather that her having come is exactly a sign that the marriage is a little shaky. If it were certain, a self-respecting girl like Ruth would have waited for him over there."

I noted that they were already Ruth and Adelaide, but what I said was: "Do you mean that she has returned to make it a certainty?"

"No, I mean that I figure she has come out for some reason independent of it." Adelaide could only figure as yet, and there was more, as we found, to be revealed. Mrs. Mulville, on hearing of her arrival, had brought the young lady out in the green landau for the Sunday. The Coxons were in possession of the house in Regent's Park, and Miss Anvoy was in dreary lodgings. George Gravener was with her when Adelaide called, but he had assented graciously enough to the little visit at Wimbledon. The carriage, with Mr. Saltram in it but not mentioned, had been sent off on some errand from which it was to return and pick the ladies up. Gravener left them together, and at the end of an hour, on the Saturday afternoon, the party of three drove out to Wimbledon. This was the girl's second glimpse of our