By return of post Angela received her strange agreement, duly copied and signed, and after this the preparations for the marriage went on rapidly. But where such a large transaction is concerned as the sale of between three and four thousand acres of land, copyhold and freehold, together with sundry rent-charges and the lordship of six manors, things cannot be done in a minute.

Both George and Philip and their respective lawyers — Sir John would have nothing to do with the matter — did their best to expedite matters, but unfortunately some legal difficulty arose in connection with the transfer, and who can hurry the ponderous and capricious machinery of the law?

At length it became clear to all concerned, except Angela, that it would be impossible for the marriage to take place before the eighth of June, and it also became clear that that was the last possible day on which it could take place. George begged Philip (by letter, being too ill to come and see him) to allow the marriage to be gone through with at once, and have the business transactions finished afterwards. But to this Philip would not consent; the title-deeds, he said, must be in his possession before it took place, otherwise he would have no marriage. George had therefore no option but to accept his terms.

When Angela was told of the date fixed for the ceremony — she would not allow the word marriage to be mentioned in connection with it — she at first created considerable consternation by quietly announcing that she would not have it performed until the tenth of June. At last, however, when matters were growing serious, and when she had treated all the pressure that it was possible to put upon her with quiet indifference — for, as usual, her father declined to interfere, but contented himself with playing a strictly passive part — she suddenly of her own mere motion, abolished the difficulty by consenting to appear before the registrar on the eighth of June, as George wished.

Her reasons for having objected to this date in the first instance will be easily guessed. It was the day before the anniversary of Arthur’s departure, an anniversary which it was her fancy to dedicate solely to his memory. But as the delay appeared — though she could not altogether understand why — to put others to great inconvenience, and as George’s state of health had become such as to render postponement, even for a couple of days of doubtful expediency, and as, moreover, she decided on reflection that she could better give her thoughts to her dead lover when she had gone through with the grim farce that hung over her, she suddenly changed her mind.

Occasionally they brought her documents to sign, and she signed them without a question, but on the whole she treated the affair with considerable apathy, the truth being that it was repugnant to her mind, which she preferred to occupy with other and very different thoughts. So she let it go. She knew that she was going to do a thing which was dreadful to her, because she believed it to be her duty, but she comforted herself with the reflection that she was amply secured against all possible contingencies by her previous agreement with George. Angela’s knowledge of the marriage-law of her country and of what constituted a legal document was not extensive.

For this same reason, because it was distasteful, she had never said anything of her contemplated marriage to Pigott, and it was quite unknown in the neighbourhood. Since the Miss Lee scandal and his consequent disinheritance, nobody had visited Philip Caresfoot, and those who took interest in him or his affairs were few. Indeed the matter had been kept a dead secret. But on the seventh of June, being the day previous to the ceremony, Angela went down to her nurse’s cottage and told her what was about to be done, suppressing, however, from various motives, all mention of her agreement with George. It added to her depression to find that Pigott was unaccountably disturbed at the news.

“Well, miss,” she said,—“Lord, to think that I sha’n’t be able to call you that no longer — I haven’t got nothing in particular to say agin it, seeing that sure enough the man’s a-dying, as I has on good authority from my own aunt’s cousin, her that does the servants’ washing up at the Hall, and mighty bad she does it, begging of her pardon for the disparagement, and so he won’t trouble you for long, and somehow it do seem as though you hadn’t got no choice left in the matter, just as though everybody and everything was a-quietly pushing you into it. But, miss, somehow I don’t like it, to be plain; a marriage as ain’t no marriage ain’t altogether natural like, and in an office, too, along with a man as you would not touch with a pair of tongs, and that man on his last leg. I’m right down sorry if I makes you feel uncomfortable, dearie; but, bless me, I don’t know how it is, but, when a thing sticks in my mind, I’m as bound to hawk it up as though it were a bone in my throat.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, nurse, but perhaps you don’t understand all about the property being concerned, and about its having to pass away from my father, if I don’t do this. I care nothing about the property, but he left it to ‘my generosity!’ Arthur is dead; and he left it to ‘my generosity,’ nurse. What could I do?”

“Well, miss, you’re acting according to what you thinks right and due to your father, which is more nor I does; and poor, dead Mr. Arthur up in Heaven there will make a note of that, there ain’t no manner of doubt. And somehow it do seem that things can’t be allowed to go wrong with you, my dear, seeing how you’re a-sacrificing of yourself and of your wishes to benefit others.”

This conversation did not tend to put Angela into better spirits, but she felt that it was now too late to recede.

Whilst Angela was talking to Pigott, Sir John and Lady Bellamy were paying a call at Isleworth. They found George lying on the sofa in the dining-room, in which, though it was the first week in June, a fire was burning on the hearth. He bore all the signs of a man in the last stage of consumption. The hollow cough, the emaciation, and the hectic hue upon his face, all spoke with no uncertain voice.