ard, and most of the night she spent pacing up and down from window to door turning over the amazing situation in which she found herself. She had never thought of m

for the next twenty years, behind prison walls, neither distressed nor horrified her. S

work, and it would be no wrench for her to drop it and give herself up to the serious study of art. Five thousand pounds a year! Sh

re? She could not marry, but then she did not want to marry. She was not the kind to fall in love, she told

e for an old maid,"

ss morning it was, thought Lydia, looking out o

dear," she said with a glance at t

on the girl's arm an

e said with a whimsical smile. "I expect

remembering the gloomy picture wh

if the authorities find that you ha

redith, anticipating that the Home Office would allow him to get married, had made arrangements for the marriage at this house. How

king herself presentable

there came another tap on the

id. Her face was a little

self, as she walked into the dr

as a gaunt, unshaven man, his hair cut short, his face and figure wasted, so that the clothes he wore hung on him. Her first feeling was one of revulsion. Her second was an impulse of pity

meet you under such unpleasant circumstances.

no

d a magnetic quality

rriage must take place?" he said, lowering his voice. "Believe

he walked over to wh

in now," he

loosely-fitting ring, for Jack Glover had made the wildest guess at the size) was slipped over her finger. S

going to fain

ke with a confused idea that somebody was trying to hypnotise her, an

afraid you've had a trying time, an

ett shook

hing the bridegroom. "Mr. Rennett," he said, "I must tell you in the presence of witnesses, that I have escaped from a nursing home to which I had been sent by the cleme

e police, Mr. Meredith." It was all part of the game. The girl watched the play, knowing that this sce

the hall to answer. But it was not the policeman he had expected. It was a girl in a big sable coat, mu

nd then, as she unfastened her coat, recognised her with a gasp. It was th

u?" It was Glover's voice

aid the girl shortly

s Briggerland," he said, "and you're likely to

yes fell upo

said slowly, "th

then she looked at Lydia, and t

he had gone. She wondered if he had gone out to the police, to make his

o sign of any human being. He raced along a path which ran parallel with the house, turned the corner and dived into a shrubbery. Here the snow had not laid, and he

tended, his head in a pool of blood

on of horror and ran to t

Meredith, and