The words roused Edith from her waking trance. “I thank heaven doubly now that I was enabled to become the wife of Lionel Dering! If—if I must indeed lose him, he will still be mine beyond the grave. Our parting will not be for long. We shall——” She could say no more. She rose hastily, and went to the window, and stood there till her composure had in some measure come back to her. “You have something more to tell me, Mr. Bristow,” she said, as she went back to her chair after a little while. “How sorry I am to have distressed you so much!” said Tom, with real feeling. “Do not speak of that now, please. You have told me the truth, and I am grateful to you for it. I have been living too long in a fool’s paradise.” “But you must not give way to despair. Dering’s case is by no means a hopeless one, and I should not have said what I have said to you this afternoon, had I not been compelled to do so by another and a most important reason.” Edith looked at him rather wearily, as if anything that he might now say could have only the faintest possible interest for her. “As I said before,” resumed Tom, “it is always wise to prepare for the worst, although that worst may possibly never come. And this was the object I had in view, firstly, when I induced you to leave your lodgings in Duxley and come to live in this lonely little house; and, secondly, when I had that piece of furniture made for you which we have just unpacked upstairs.” Edith’s attention was keen enough now. “You speak in parables!” she said with pitiful eagerness. “In one moment I will enlighten you,” said Tom. He leaned forward and spoke slowly and impressively, so that every word might be heard by his three auditors. “If I find that the result of the trial is likely to be adverse to Lionel Daring, it is my fixed intention to assist him to escape from prison, and to hide him from pursuit in this very house!” Mrs. Garside and Martha sat staring at Tom when he had done speaking as though they believed him to be mad. Edith’s heart gave a great sob in which hope, and joy, and fear were commingled. “The first thing was to get you out of lodgings,” resumed Tom. “While you were there, it would have been impossible for you to hide anybody. Fortunately, this house was to let. It is secluded, and not overlooked from the windows of any other house, and consequently admirably adapted for the purpose I have in view. But in the house itself it was necessary to find some special hiding-place—some nook that would be safe from the prying eyes of the most acute and experienced police officer. Many were the hours I spent in cogitating over one scheme after another. The result was that I could think of no safer place in which to hide an escaped prisoner than my mahogany wardrobe.” “Hide him in a wardrobe!” exclaimed Mrs. Garside, in dismay. “Why, that would be one of the first places a police officer would look into.”