“I shall be back, my dear,” he said with dignity, “in about five minutes.” He had not the faintest notion how long a girl takes to get herself out of wet clothes and into a red flannel night-gown, but five minutes seemed a liberal estimate.
“Lor’, sir,” remarked the landlady with frank astonishment, “you’re not going somewhere else to change your clothes, surely? Not after I’ve lighted this fire for you and all?”
“Five minutes!” squeaked Laura at the same time. “But—but you’re not coming back here, are you?”
Mr. Priestley looked from one to the other uneasily. The landlady eyed them both with undisguised surprise. Laura, realising that she had not said quite the right thing so far as the landlady was concerned, began to blush gently, swore silently at herself for doing so, and blushed hotly. The landlady’s kindly eye grew less kindly; it clouded with suspicion. The demeanour of either Laura or Mr. Priestley at that moment would have roused suspicion in a blind woman; their very silence was eloquent.
“I suppose,” said the landlady very slowly, “that you two are married, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Really!” spluttered Mr. Priestley, trying hard to simulate anger. “Really, this is preposterous. I won’t——”
“Seeing,” pursued the landlady in the same tones, her eyes now glued to Laura’s left hand, “seeing, I mean, as the lady isn’t wearing no ring nor anything!”
This was not true. The modern girl does not wear very much, but she does wear something. Laura was wearing several things, each damper than the others.
A hundred despairing schemes flitted through Mr. Priestley’s mind. Now that the handcuffs were off, there was no need for them to pretend they were married. Should he say they were brother and sister? But then that would look suspicious, and real suspicion was the very last thing they wanted to arouse. There would certainly be an account of the crime in the next morning’s papers, and then if their behaviour gave the landlady any inkling that——
Laura’s laugh interrupted his frenzied thoughts. “I see,” said Laura quite naturally, “that we shall have to tell you the truth. No, we’re not——”