t 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. How Mr. Meredith comes
here is quite a matter outside our knowledge," said the diplomatic lady,
and Lydia laughed in spite of herself.

She spent half an hour making herself presentable for the forthcoming
ordeal.

As a church clock struck eight, there came another tap on the door. It
was Mrs. Rennett again.

"They are waiting," she said. Her face was a little pale and her lips
trembled.

Lydia, however, was calmness itself, as she walked into the drawing-room
ahead of her hostess.

There were four men. Glover and Rennett she knew. A third man wearing a
clerical collar she guessed was the officiating priest, and all her
attention was concentrated upon the fourth. He was a gaunt, unshaven