"That's why I'm here now."
"I wonder you never married," said Mrs. Fielding.
"Do you?" Juliet spoke dreamily. They were running swiftly up a steep and
stony road leading to High Shale Point. "Lady Jo used to wonder that. But
I've never yet met a man who was willing to wait, and I couldn't do a
thing like that in a hurry."
"You could if you were in love," said Mrs. Fielding.
"Yes, perhaps you're right. In that case, I have never been enough in
love to take the leap." Juliet spoke with a half smile. Her eyes were
fixed upon the top of the hill. "But anyhow Lady Jo couldn't talk, for
she has just jilted Ivor Yardley the K. C. and gone to Paris to buy
mourning."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielding. "Why, I saw the description
of the wedding-dress in the paper the other day. It must have been a
near thing."
"It was," said Juliet soberly. "They were to have been married to-day."
"And she broke it off! That must have taken some pluck!"
"But she didn't stay to face the music," Juliet pointed out. "That was
what I hated in her. She ought to have stayed."
"Was she afraid of him then?"
"Afraid? Yes, she was afraid of him--and of everybody else.
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