The Angel of Terror | Page 8

did not happen, she
told herself, and yet here was a young man, standing with his back to
the fire, explaining in the most commonplace conversational tone, an
offer which belonged strictly to the realm of romance, and not too
convincing romance at that.
"You've rather taken my breath away," she said after a while. "All this
wants thinking about, and if Mr. Meredith is in prison----"
"Mr. Meredith is not in prison," said Glover quietly. "He was released
two days ago to go to a nursing home for a slight operation. He escaped
from the nursing home last night and at this particular moment is in this
house."
She could only stare at him open-mouthed, and he went on.
"The Briggerlands know he has escaped; they probably thought he was
here, because we have had a police visitation this afternoon, and the
interior of the house and grounds have been searched. They know, of
course, that Mr. Rennett and I were his legal advisers, and we expected
them to come. How he escaped their observation is neither here nor
there. Now, Miss Beale, what do you say?"
"I don't know what to say," she said, shaking her head helplessly. "I
know I'm dreaming, and if I had the moral courage to pinch myself
hard, I should wake up. Somehow I don't want to wake, it is so
fascinatingly impossible."
He smiled.
"Can I see Mr. Meredith?"
"Not till to-morrow. I might say that we've made every arrangement for
your wedding, the licence has been secured and at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning--marriages before eight or after three are not legal
in this country, by the way--a clergyman will attend and the ceremony

will be performed."
There was a long silence.
Lydia sat on the edge of her chair, her elbows on her knees, her face in
her hands.
Glover looked down at her seriously, pityingly, cursing himself that he
was the exponent of his own grotesque scheme. Presently she looked
up.
"I think I will," she said a little wearily. "And you were wrong about
the number of judgment summonses, there were seventy-five in two
years--and I'm so tired of lawyers."
"Thank you," said Jack Glover politely.
Chapter IV
All night long she had sat in the little bedroom to which Mrs. Rennett
had led her, thinking and thinking and thinking. She could not sleep,
although she had tried hard, 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 marriage seriously,
and really a marriage such as this presented no terrors and might, had
the prelude been a little less exciting, been accepted by her with relief.
The prospect of being a wife in name only, even the thought that her
husband would be, for the next twenty years, behind prison walls,
neither distressed nor horrified her. Somehow she accepted Glover's
statement that Meredith was innocent, without reservation.
She wondered what Mrs. Morgan would say and what explanation she
would give at the office. She was not particularly in love with her 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! She could live in
Italy, study under the best masters, have a car of her own--the
possibilities seemed illimitable--and the disadvantages?

She shrugged her shoulders as she answered the question for the
twentieth time. What disadvantages were there? She could not marry,
but then she did not want to marry. She was not the kind to fall in love,
she told herself, she was too independent, too sophisticated, and
understood men and their weaknesses only too well.
"The Lord designed me for an old maid," she said to herself.
At seven o'clock in the morning--a grey, cheerless morning it was,
thought Lydia, looking out of the window--Mrs. Rennett came in with
some tea.
"I'm afraid you haven't slept, my dear," she said with a glance at the
bed. "It's very trying for you."
She laid her hand upon the girl's arm and squeezed it gently.
"And it's very trying for all of us," she said with a whimsical smile. "I
expect we shall all get into fearful trouble."
That had occurred to the girl too, remembering the gloomy picture
which Glover had painted in the car.
"Won't this be very serious for you, if the authorities find that you have
connived at the escape?" she asked.
"Escape, my dear?" Mrs. Rennett's face became a mask. "I have not
heard anything of an escape. All that we know is that poor Mr.
Meredith, anticipating that the Home Office would allow him to get
married, had made arrangements for the marriage at this house.