“Your wife! Oh no, no, no!” she said sadly. “That is impossible now.”
“Why?” he whispered tenderly.
“Why?” she cried. “Did you hear? Can you not see how I am linked with those who are flying from justice? Heaven help me! I ought to be with them still.”
“Hush!” he said gently; “you are wildly excited now. Your brain is not in a condition to think calmly and dispassionately of your position. It may be days before it recovers its balance. Till then, Marion, try and think this one thing—that you are watched over by one to whom your honour and safety are more than his own life. Marion, my own—my very own—let the past be dead; the future shall be my care.”
She sighed piteously and shivered, as she lay back in the corner of the cab, and, startled by her manner, he hurriedly took her hand.
She shrank back, looking wildly at him, till she fully realised his object, and then with a weary smile upon her lip she resigned her hand.
“You are utterly prostrated by the shock of what you have gone through,” he said gravely. “We shall not be long now. Try—try hard to be calm. The distance is very short, and then you will feel safe and soon grow composed.”
She gave him a grateful look, and then closed her eyes, lying back with her face ghastly pale, and the nerves at the sides of her temples and the corners of her lips twitching sharply at times, as if she were in pain.
But she sat up when the cab stopped, and gave Chester her hand as she alighted, and walked with him up the steps and into the house.
As the door closed she turned to him wildly and tottered slightly, but when he made a movement to catch her in his arms, she shrank away, and he drew back and offered his hand.