"That is all thought out. When you leave here you will find me waiting
for you with a bicycle in the wood on the road to Ellon. You will have
to start about half past five. No one will notice that you are using a
lady's wheel. You will come to Whinnyfold where you will find a skirt
and jacket and cap. They are the best I could get. We shall ride into
Aberdeen as by that means we shall minimise the chance of being seen.
There we will catch the eight train to Carlisle where we shall arrive
about a quarter to two. Mrs. Jack will be there ready for you and will
have the dress you will want to-morrow."
"Oh, poor dear won't she be flustered and mystified! How lucky it is
that she likes you, and is satisfied with you; otherwise I am afraid she
would never agree to such precipitancy. But hold on a minute! Won't it
look odd to our outside friends on the watch if a footman goes out and
doesn't return."
"You will return to-morrow late in the evening. Mrs. Jack will be home
by then; she must arrange to keep the servants busy in some distant
part of the house, so that you can come in unobserved. Besides, the
detectives have to divide their watches; the same men will not be on
duty I take it. Anyhow, if they do not consider the outgoing of a
footman as sufficiently important to follow him up they will not trouble
much about his incoming."
This all seemed feasible to Marjory; so we talked the matter over and
arranged a hundred little details. These things she wrote down for Mrs.
Jack's enlightenment, and to aid her memory when she would be alone to
carry out the plans as arranged.
Mrs. Jack was a little hard to convince; but at last she came round. She
persisted to almost the end of our interview in saying that she could
not understand the necessity for either the hurry or the mystery. She
was only convinced when at last Marjory said:
"Do you want us to have all the Chicago worry over again, dear? You
approve of my marrying Archie do you not? Well, I had such a sickener of
proposals and all about it, that if I can't marry this way now, I won't
marry at all. My dear, I want to marry Archie; you know we love each
other."
"Ah, that I do, my dears!"
"Well then you must help us; and bear with all our secrecy for a bit;
won't you dear?"
"That I will, my child!" she said wiping tears from the corners of her
eyes.
So it was all settled.
CHAPTER XXVI
A WHOLE WEDDING DAY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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