Page 644 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

dislike will become suspicion. Is it likely that I should have
been married all these years and not have informed them?’
‘Very unlikely,’ returned Sarah calmly, ‘and that is just
the reason why you have not been married all these years.
Really,’ she added, with a laugh, ‘the male intellect is very
dull. You have already told ten thousand lies about this af-
fair, and yet you don’t see your way to tell one more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why, my dear Richard, you surely cannot have forgot-
ten that you married me last year on the Continent? By the
way, it was last year that you were there, was it not? I am the
daughter of a poor clergyman of the Church of England;
name—anything you please- and you met me—where shall
we say? Baden, Aix, Brussels? Cross the Alps, if you like,
dear, and say Rome.’ John Rex put his hand to his head. ‘Of
course—I am stupid,’ said he. ‘I have not been well lately.
Too much brandy, I suppose.’
‘Well, we will alter all that,’ she returned with a laugh,
which her anxious glance at him belied. ‘You are going to
be domestic now, Jack—I mean Dick.’
‘Go on,’ said he impatiently. ‘What then?’
‘Then, having settled these little preliminaries, you take
me up to London and introduce me to your relatives and
friends.’
He started. ‘A bold game.’
‘Bold! Nonsense! The only safe one. People don’t, as a
rule, suspect unless one is mysterious. You must do it; I
have arranged for your doing it. The waiters here all know
me as your wife. There is not the least danger— unless, in-