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  though she had earned enough in England to pay her steamer passage to America, and a month’s expenses afterward, she could not be certain of continuing to do so much through a London winter. ‘If I only had a little more time to think it out,’ she kept saying, ‘but I haven’t, so I must go!’”

“Where is she now?”

“At her lodgings. The bishop is detained in Bath and I am dining with friends in his stead. I thought you might go and take her to dinner at the Swan, so that she should n’t be alone, and then bring her to the palace afterward—if—if all is well.”

“If I have any luck two churches will be lamenting her loss to-morrow morning,” said Fergus gloomily; “but she would n’t have consented to go if she cared anything about me!”

“Nonsense, my dear boy! You were away. No self-respecting girl would wire you to come back. She was helpless even if she did care. Here we are! Shall I send a hansom back in half an hour?”