It was the night before the wedding. The bad Lord Wurzel had just left me with words of love upon his lying lips. To-morrow, unless Andrew Spinnaker saved me, I should be Lady Wurzel.
"A marconigram for you, miss," said our faithful old gardener, William, entering the drawing-room noiselessly by the chimney. "I brought it myself to be sure you got it."
With trembling fingers I tore it open. How my heart leapt and the hot colour flooded my neck and brow when I recognised the dear schoolboy writing of my beloved Andrew! I have the message still. It went like this:
"Wireless—South Pole.
Arrived safe. Found Pole. Weather charming. Blue sky. Not a breath of wind. Am wearing my thick socks. Sun never going down. Constellations revolving without dipping. Moon going sideways. Am starting for England to-morrow. Arrive Victoria twelve o'clock, Wednesday.—Andrew."
Back on Wednesday! And to-morrow was Tuesday—my wedding day! There was no hope. I felt like a shipwrecked voyager. For the thirty-fifth time since the beginning of the month deep oblivion came over me, and I swooned.
[Hall Caine. I think you might go on now. I have put a little life into the story. It is, perhaps, not quite so vivid as my last work, "The Woman Thou Gavest Me," of which more than a million copies——
Mrs. Barclay. In the two hundredth edition of "The Broken Halo"——
Hall Caine (annoyed). Tut!]