He turned and drew her into his strong arms. “I’ve married the sweetest, the most generous, and—and, Mary, the dearest of women.”
“At any rate you can always say to yourself, ‘A poor thing, but mine own—’” she said, half laughing, half crying. And then their lips met and clung together, for the first time.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Mr. Reynolds walked back up the steps of the Council House of Witanbury. He felt as if he had just had a pleasant glimpse of that Kingdom of Romance which so many seek and so few find, and that now he was returning into the everyday world. Sure enough, when he reached the Council Chamber, he found Dr. Haworth there with a prosaic-looking person. This was evidently the man to whom the Dean thought Anna would be more likely to reveal the truth than to her kind, impulsive employer.
Mr. Reynolds had not expected to see so intelligent and young-looking a man. He was familiar with the type of German who has for long made his career in England. But this naturalised German was not true to type at all! Though probably over fifty, he still had an alert, active figure, and he was extraordinarily like someone Mr. Reynolds had seen. In fact, for a few moments the likeness quite haunted him. Who on earth could it be that this man so strongly resembled? But soon he gave up the likeness as a bad job—it didn’t matter, after all!
“Well, Mr. Head, I expect that Dr. Haworth has already told you what it is we hope from you.”
“Yes, sir, I think I understand.”
“Are you an American?” asked the other abruptly.
The Witanbury City Councillor looked slightly embarrassed. “No,” he said at last. “But I was in the United States for some years.”
“You were never connected, I suppose, with the New York Police?”