Anne called to them. "I say, darlings, would you mind awfully going
somewhere else? Colin can't sleep with you prowling about there."
Adeline's voice came up to them with a little laughing quiver.
"All right, ducky; we're going in."
One morning Adeline came down smiling, more self-conscious than ever.
"Anne," she said, "do you think you could look after Colin if I went up
to Evelyn's for a week or two?"
Evelyn was Adeline's sister. She lived in London.
"Of course I can."
"You aren't afraid of being alone with him?"
"Afraid? Of Col-Col? What do you take me for?"
"Well--" Adeline meditated. "It isn't as if Mrs. Benning wasn't here."
Mrs. Benning was the housekeeper.
"That'll make it all right and proper. The fact is, I must have a rest
and change before the winter. I hardly ever get away, as you know. And
Evelyn would like to have me. I think I must go."
"Of course you must go," Anne said.
And Adeline went.
At the end of the first week she wrote: 12 Eaton Square. November 3d, 1915.
Darling Anne,--Will you be very much surprised to hear that your
father and I are going to be married? You mayn't know it, but he
has loved me all his life. We _were_ to have married once (you
knew _that_), and I jilted him. But he has never changed. He has
been so faithful and forgiving, and has waited for me so
patiently--twenty-seven years, Anne--that I hadn't the heart to
refuse him. I feel that I must make up to him for all the pain
I've given him.
We want you to come up for the wedding on the 10th. It will be
very quiet. No bridesmaids. No party. We think it best not to
have it at Wyck, on Colin's account. So I shall just be married
from Evelyn's house.
Give us your blessing, there's a dear.
Your loving Adeline Fielding.
Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline Fielding
completely, as she was, without any fascination. She thought: "She's
marrying to get away from Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How
could she leave him? How could she?"
Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline it wasn't much use
asking her when she knew that Colin couldn't be left.
"Or, if you like, that _I_ can't leave him."
Her father wrote back: Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her
you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's
the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking
after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and
you ought to be grateful to me for relieving you of the job.