For quite an hour we were alone in the rather cosy little parlour, the blind down and the gas lit. The furniture was indeed a strange contrast to that at Ryhall, yet the couple of wicker armchairs were decidedly comfortable, and the fire gave out a pleasant warmth as we sat near it. "Ours is a curious position, Wilfrid, isn't it?" she whispered at last, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers. "What would the world think if they knew the truth?" "If they knew the truth," she said, seriously, "they would admire you for your self-sacrifice in assisting a helpless woman. Yet it is really very amusing," and Tibbie, so well known and popular in the smart set of London, leaned back and smiled. I was about to refer to the mystery of her flight, yet I hesitated. There was time for that, I thought, when she was more settled in her hiding-place. It was certainly a novel experience to pose as the husband of Tibbie-- the gay, merry, vivacious Tibbie Burnet, who was the life and soul of the go-ahead set in which she moved, and as we sat chatting we had many a good laugh over the ludicrous situation in which we found ourselves. "You'll have to pretend, in any case, to be very fond of me," she laughed. "I suppose I ought to call you `dear' sometimes," I remarked humorously. "Yes, dear," she responded, with the final word accentuated. "And I shall call you William--my dear Willie." "And what am I to call you?" "Oh! Molly would be a good name. Yes. Call me Molly," and she held her new wedding ring before my eyes with a tantalising laugh. "We shall have to be very careful to keep up the fiction," I said. "These people will, no doubt, watch us at first." "I shall soon make friends of Mrs Williams," she said. "Leave that to me. I can be circumspect enough when occasion requires. But--oh--I'd so love to smoke a cigarette." "A cigarette!" I cried, horrified; "women don't smoke in this neighbourhood. Whatever you do, don't smoke when I'm not here, they'll smell it at once." "Yes," she sighed. "The ideas of the poor people are quite different to ours, aren't they?" she reflected. At that moment there was a tap at the door, and the landlady begged leave to introduce her husband, a rather tall, well-set-up man with a closely-cropped dark beard. He greeted me pleasantly, and expressed a hope that we should be comfortable. "The missis will do all she can for Mrs Morton, I'm sure," she said. "I hear you're on night-work." "Yes, unfortunately," I said, "our work is mostly at night, you know-- getting ready the next day's paper." He was affable from the first, and apparently entirely unsuspicious, for he sent his wife downstairs for a jug of ale, and I was compelled to take a glass with him in order to cement our acquaintanceship, after which he and his wife discreetly withdrew with, I hope, the opinion that we were "a very nice, quiet couple."