"Your husband," I exclaimed, staring at her.

"Yes," she cried quickly. "To place myself in a position of safety I must first live in a crowded part of London where I can efface my ident.i.ty; and secondly, for appearances' sake, as well as for another and much stronger motive, I must have a husband. Will you, Wilfrid, pretend to be mine?"

Her request utterly nonplussed me, and she noticed my hesitation.

"If you will only consent to go into hiding with me I can escape," she urged, quickly. "You can easily contrive to live in Bolton Street and pose as my husband in another part of the world; while I--well, I simply disappear. There will be a loud hue and cry after me, of course, but when I'm not found, the mater and the others will simply put my disappearance down to my eccentricity. They will never connect us, for you will take good care to be seen in London leading your usual life, and indeed seriously troubled over my disappearance. They will never suspect."

"But why must you appear to have a husband?" I asked, extremely puzzled.

"I have a reason--a strong one," she answered, earnestly. "I have enemies, and my hand will be strengthened against them the instant they believe that I have married."

"That may be so," I said, dubiously. "But where do you suggest taking up your abode?"

"Camberwell would be a good quarter," she responded. "There is a large working-cla.s.s population there. We could take furnished apartments with some quiet landlady. You are a compositor on one of the morning newspapers, and are out at work all night. Sometimes, too, you have to work overtime--I think they call it--and then you are away the greater part of the day also. I don't want you to tie yourself to me too much, you see," she added, smiling. "We shall give out that we've been married a year, and by your being a compositor, your absence won't be remarked. So you see you can live in Bolton Street just the same, and pay me a daily visit to Camberwell, just to cheer me up."

"But surely you could never bear life in a back street, Tibbie," I said, looking at her utterly bewildered at her suggestion. "You would have to wear print dresses, cook, and clean up your rooms."

"And don't you think I know how to do that?" she asked. "Just see whether I can't act the working-man's wife if you will only help to save me from--from the awful fate that threatens me. Say you will, Wilfrid,"

she gasped, taking my hand again. "You will not desert me now, will you? Remember you are the only friend I dare go to in my present trouble. You will not refuse to be known in Camberwell as my husband-- will you?"

I was silent. Was any living man ever placed in dilemma more difficult?

What could I reply? That she was in real deep earnest I saw from her white, drawn countenance. The dark rings around her eyes told their own tale. She was desperate, and she declared that by acting as she suggested I could save her.

The dead, staring, clean-shaven countenance of that man in the wood arose before me, and I held my breath, my eyes fixed upon hers.

She saw that I hesitated to compromise her and implicate myself.

Then slowly she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, saying in a strange voice, so low that I hardly caught the words,--

"Wilfrid, I--I can tell you no more. My life is entirely in your hands.

Save me, or--or I will kill myself. I dare not face the truth. Give me my life. Do whatever you will. Suspect me; hate me; spurn me as I deserve, but I crave mercy of you--I crave of you life--life!"

And releasing me she stood motionless, her hands clasped in supplication, her head bent, not daring to look me again in the face.

What could I think? What, reader, would you have thought? How would you have acted in such circ.u.mstances?

CHAPTER SEVEN.

IN WHICH I PLAY A DANGEROUS GAME.

Well--I agreed.

Yes--I agreed to pose as the hard-working compositor upon a daily newspaper and husband of the Honourable Sybil Burnet, the woman by whose hand the unknown man had fallen.

At first I hesitated, refusing to compromise her, yet she had fallen upon her knees imploring me to help her, and I was bound to fulfil the promise I had so injudiciously made.

There was no love between us now, she had declared. The flame had flickered and died out long ago.

"If you will only consent to act as though I were your wife, then I may be able to save myself," she urged. "You will do so, will you not?"

"But why?" I had asked. "I cannot see how our pretended marriage can a.s.sist you?"

"Leave it all to me," was her confident reply. "One day you will discern the reason."

And then, with tears in her beautiful eyes, and kneeling at my feet, she begged again of me to act as she suggested and thus save her life.

So I consented. Yes--you may say that I was foolish, that I was injudicious, that I was still beneath the spell of her exquisite grace and matchless beauty. Perhaps I was: yet I tell you that at the moment so stunned was I by the tragedy, by what Eric had revealed, and by her midnight visit, that I hardly knew what I did.

"Very well, Sybil," I said at last. "Let it be so. I will help you to escape, and I will act as though I were your husband. For your sake I will do this, although I tell you plainly that I see in it a grave and deadly peril."

"There is a far greater peril if I remain unmarried," she answered.

"You recollect my question this afternoon. I asked whether you would not really marry me. I asked because I feared that the blow might fall, and that I should have to seek protection."

"And the blow has fallen?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered, in a low, desperate voice. "And were it not for you I--I should go to my room now and kill myself, Wilfrid! You, however, have promised to save me. There is no time to lose. I must get away at once. You will help me to get out the car?"

"Of course. And you will take Mason? You must take her," I added.

"Why?"

"Because it is dangerous for her to remain here. She may raise the alarm," I said, rather lamely. "Take my advice and carry her with you down to Bournemouth."

"Very well," she answered, hurriedly, and raising my hand to her soft lips, kissed it before I could prevent her, and said, "Wilfrid, let me thank you. You have given me back my life. An hour ago I was in my room and made preparations to bid adieu to everything. But I thought of you--my last and only chance of salvation. Ah! you do not know--no, no--I--I can never tell you! I can only give you the thanks of a desperate and grateful woman!" And then she slipped out, promising to meet me again there with Mason in a quarter of an hour.

I crept back to my room, and when I had closed the door Eric stepped from his hiding-place.

"She intends to fly," I explained. "She is going away on the car, and I have persuaded her to take Mason."

"On the car? At this hour?"

In brief I explained all that had taken place between us, and he listened to me in silence till the end.

"What?" he cried. "You are actually going to make people believe that you're her husband?"

"I'm going to make people in Camberwell believe it," I answered.

"But isn't that a very dangerous bit of business?" he queried. "Suppose any of her people knew it. What would be said?"

I only shrugged my shoulders.

"Well," he remarked at last, "please yourself, old chap, but I can't help thinking that it's very unwise. I can't see either how being married protects her in the least."

"Nor can I. Yet I've resolved to shield her, and at the same time to try and solve the mysterious affair, therefore, I'm bound to adopt her suggestions. She must get away at once, and we must get Mason out of the neighbourhood--those two facts are plain. The motor will run down the avenue without any noise, so she'll be miles away when the household awake."

"Where's she going?"

I told him, and he agreed that my suggestion had been a good one.