ten o'clock in the
morning
H 'm '' -- he stopped short , oppressed by the difficulties of the situation . Had he not better speak to Maurice Kenyon at once ? But , as he recollected , Maurice had gone out of town , and would not be back until half an hour or so before the hour fixed for his sister 's wedding . The ceremony was to be performed at an unusually early hour -- ten o'clock in the morning -- for divers reasons : one being that Ethel wanted to begin her journey to Paris in very good time . She had never been anxious for a fashionable wedding , and had decided to have no formal wedding breakfast , and there was no reason for delaying the proceedings until a later hour . But , as Mr. Brooke reflected , unless he went to Ethel Kenyon herself there was little time in which to take action . Indeed , it seemed to him for a moment almost better to let the past sink into oblivion , and to hope that Oliver would be kind and faithful to the beautiful and gifted girl who was , apparently , the choice of his heart .