"Yes. I've decided to explain to the curious that I was a lady's-maid, and that we've been married nearly a year. Recollect that--in order to tell the same story. Where's the ring? Did you think of that?" Yes, I had thought of it. I felt in my vest pocket, and taking out the plain little band of gold that I had bought in a shop in Regent Street that afternoon, placed it upon the finger, she laughing heartily, and then bending to examine it more closely in the uncertain light of the gas-lamps in Gray's Inn Road. "If I told you the truth, Wilfrid, you'd be horribly annoyed," she said, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers. "No. What is it?" I asked. "Well--only--only that I wish you were my real husband," she answered frankly. "If you were, then I should fear nothing. But it cannot be--I know that." "What do you fear, Tibbie?" I asked, very seriously. "Tell me--do tell me." "I--I can't--I can't now," was her nervous response in a harder voice, turning her gaze away from mine. "If I did, you would withdraw your help--you would not dare to risk your own reputation and mine, as you are now doing, just because we are old boy-and-girl friends." On we went through the streaming downpour along Chancery Lane and the Strand, the driver lowering the window, for the rain and mud were beating into our faces. "Well," I said, "and what do you suggest doing?" "To-night I must disappear. I shall sleep in some obscure hotel across the water, and to-morrow you must call for me, and we'll go together to fix upon our future `home.'" Then she inquired eagerly what impression her absence had produced at Ryhall, and I told her. For a time she remained serious and thoughtful. Her countenance had changed. "Then Mason came back, as I ordered her?" "Yes," I answered, "but won't she miss those things of hers you are now wearing?" "No. Because they were in a trunk that she had packed ready to send up to town. She won't discover they've gone for some weeks, I feel sure." She described her night run from Chichester to Bournemouth, how she had escaped from Mason, taken train direct up to Birmingham, remained that night at the Grand, then went on to Leicester, where she had spent a day, arriving in London that evening at seven o'clock. In Bull Street, Birmingham, she had been recognised by a friend, the wife of an alderman, and had some difficulty in explaining why she was there alone. Our present position was not without its embarrassments. I looked at the pretty woman who was about to pose as my wife, and asked,-- "And what name shall we adopt? Have you thought of one?" "No. Let's see," she said. "How about Morton--Mr and Mrs William Morton?" "All right, then after to-morrow I shall be known as William Morton, compositor?" "And I shall be your very loving and devoted wife," she laughed, her eyes dancing. "In any case, life in Camberwell will be an entirely new experience."