“I know he is,” said Jennie, “and for that reason I am going to do something that will throw him off the track. Of course he will think that she has gone to Dover and from there to Calais and then to Paris, but we shall do nothing of the kind.”
“What are you going to do?” asked her husband.
“Well, I shan’t tell you until the very day we start. It is better that you should not know. You are one of those men who when they have anything on their mind everybody can see it and it makes them inquisitive. Now you had better be fancy-free until the morning of our departure; then I will tell you where we are going. Now, Clarence, I want you to make me a promise. No matter what happens, you must keep your mouth shut tight. Do not tell anybody which way we went nor where we have gone.”
“You’re a darling, Jennie,” he cried. “I will promise anything. Now we must go out and get our suppers, for I’m as hungry as a bear.”
CHAPTER VII.
BERTHA’S ESCAPE.
As Jennie anticipated, Mr. Thomas Glynne was very much pleased when he saw the growing intimacy between his son and ward.
“It isn’t so hard, Clarence, to come out from London every night and go back every morning as it used to be, is it?”
Clarence, with his usual lack of tact, put his foot in it again. “Well, governor, forty thousand pounds is not to be sneezed at.”
“You’re right, Clarence, and I’m glad to see that you are growing sensible. I have often wondered how you could be so foolish on a certain point and yet be a son of mine.”
Clarence had to tell Bertha his secret—that he was married and that it was his inventive little wife who had thought out a plan by which her escape from Buckholme could be managed successfully.