'Very,' replied Sleath, with difficulty repressing a smile; 'but I cannot wait.'
'There must be no running away—no attempt at eloping again,' said Ellinor, firmly.
Sir Redmond thought of Jack's teeth, and looked nervously and furtively about him.
'Jack is with Mary,' said Ellinor, who detected the glance.
'As you will—what you please, darling, so that you'll be mine. I'll see a sky-pilot—I mean a clergyman—on the subject,' he added, thinking that, after a little coaching, Gaiters might officiate in that capacity; but then how about the registrar and a church? 'Well, that is agreed upon, and we shall soon be one.'
To change the subject for a time, that he might consider the further development of his nefarious scheme,
'How on earth did you come to select such a queer locality as this to reside in?' asked Sleath, looking with genuine surprise at the humble but neat apartment, where, however, there were now many traces of ladies' hands and work.
'It was a chance. We were, and are, so ignorant of London.'
'And your landlady—you have one, I suppose?'
'Is the kindest, most attentive, and dearest old thing; not that she is very old either. And she has seen better days, it would seem.'