"Yes. It will certainly be necessary to put an entirely innocent face on recent events in order to smooth matters over," she admitted, joining in his laughter. "Rather a difficult task to make the affair at Kew appear innocent," he observed. "But you're really a wonderful woman, Mary. The way you've acted your part in this affair is simply marvellous. You've deceived everyone--even that old potterer, Sir Bernard himself." "I've done it for your sake," was her response. "I made a promise, and I've kept it. Up to the present we are safe, but we cannot take too many precautions. We have enemies and scandal-seekers on every side." "I admit that," he replied, rather impatiently, I thought. "If you think it a wise course you had better lose no time in placing Ethelwynn's innocence before her lover. You will see him in the morning, I suppose?" "Probably not. He leaves by the eight o'clock train," she said. "When my plans are matured I will call upon him in London." "And if any woman can deceive him, you can, Mary," he laughed. "In those widow's weeds of yours you could deceive the very devil himself!" Mrs. Courtenay's airy talk of deception threw an entirely fresh light upon her character. Hitherto I had held her in considerable esteem as a woman who, being bored to death by the eccentricities of her invalid husband, had sought distraction with her friends in town, but nevertheless honest and devoted to the man she had wedded. But these words of hers caused doubt to arise within my mind. That she had been devoted to her husband's interest was proved by the clever imposture she was practising; indeed it seemed to me very much as if those frequent visits to town had been at the "dead" man's suggestion and with his entire consent. But the more I reflected upon the extraordinary details of the tragedy and its astounding denouement, the more hopeless and maddening became the problem. "I shall probably go to town to-morrow," she exclaimed, after smiling at his declaration. "Where are you in hiding just now?" "In Birmingham. A large town is safer than a village. I return by the six o'clock train, and go again into close concealment." "But you know people in Birmingham, don't you? We stayed there once with some people called Tremlett, I recollect." "Ah, yes," he laughed. "But I am careful to avoid them. The district in which I live is far removed from them. Besides, I never by any chance go out by day. I'm essentially a nocturnal roamer." "And when shall we meet again?" "By appointment, in the usual way." "At the usual place?" she asked. "There can be no better, I think. It does not take you from home, and I am quite unknown down here." "If any of the villagers ever discovered us they might talk, and declare that I met a secret lover," she laughed. "If you are ever recognised, which I don't anticipate is probable, we can at once change our place of meeting. At present there is no necessity for changing it."