Godfrey and his wife never went to Cornwall after all, for on Christmas Day the weather turned so bad and travelling was so difficult that they determined to stop where they were for a few days.
As for them the roof of this London hotel had become synonymous with that of the crystal dome of heaven, this did not matter in the least. There they sat in their hideous, over-gilded, private sitting-room, or, when the weather was clear enough, went for walks in the Park, and once to the South Kensington Museum, where they enjoyed themselves very thoroughly.
It was on the fourth morning after their marriage that the blow fell. Godfrey had waked early, and lay watching his wife at his side. The grey light from the uncurtained window, which they had opened to air the over-heated room, revealed her in outline but not in detail and made her fine face mysterious, framed as it was in her yellow hair. He watched it with a kind of rapture, till at length she sighed and stirred, then began to murmur in her sleep.
"My darling," she whispered, "oh! my darling, how have I lived without you? Well, that is over, since alive or dead we can never be parted more, not really--not really!"
Then she opened her grey eyes and stretched out her arms to receive him, and he was glad, for he seemed to be listening to that which he was not meant to hear.
A little later there came a knocking at the door, and a page boy's squeaky voice without said: "Telegram for you, Sir."
Godfrey called to him to put it down, but Isobel turned pale and shivered.
"What can it be?" she said, clasping him. "No one knows our address."
"Oh, yes, they do," he answered. "You forget you telephoned to the Hall yesterday afternoon about the hospital business you had forgotten and gave our number, which would be quite enough."
"So I did, like a fool," she exclaimed, looking as though she were going to cry.
"Don't be frightened, dear," he said. "I dare say it is nothing. You see we have no one to lose."
"No, no, I feel sure it is a great deal and--we have each other. Read it quickly and get the thing over."
So he rose and fetched the yellow envelope which reposed upon Isobel's boots outside the door. A glance showed him that it was marked "official," and then his heart, too, began to sink. Returning to the bed, he switched on the electric light and opened the envelope.
"There's enough of it," he said, drawing out three closely written sheets.