"I'll tell him. As you wish. This afternoon."
Lunch went into the dining room. Nobody touched food. Steppe had to return to the house to get the wedding ring, send telegrams changing the date of his arrival in Paris, settle such minor details of household management as the change necessitated.
He was at the registrar's office when they came, Dr. Merville and the white-faced girl. In a cab behind the doctor's car travelled two Scotland Yard detectives.
The ceremony was simple. The repetition of a few sentences and Beryl Merville became Beryl Van Steppe. She did not know that his name was Van Steppe until she saw the marriage certificate.
"You can go home with your father. Be ready to leave by the boat train tonight."
So he dismissed her. All the way back to the house the doctor was talking, cheerfully, helpfully. She did not hear him. She was looking at the broad gold ring on her finger.
As they were entering the house her father leaned back, and scrutinized the street.
"I'm sure I've seen those two men before—weren't they waiting outside the registrar's, Beryl?"
Beryl had seen only one man. A man with a black beard, a broad, swarthy face and two eyes wherein burned the fires of hell.