“There’s a paper and pencil near where the siphon stood just now. I used to write notes to my sister, but I can no longer manage it.”
Jean brought what he asked for, and then he dictated, scarce hesitating for a word:
Miss Lucy Warren, The Thatched Cottage, Terriford, Grendon. This conveys an offer of marriage from one who is your devout lover. I am dying, and I want you. Lose not an hour. Come at once to 106, Coburg Square, London.—Guy Cheale.
“It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me that the postmistress of that gossiping little place should know the truth, and the doctor who looks after me here is a good chap. He’ll arrange about getting the ring, parson, bell, and book.”
As she looked at him, dazed, he said with a slight smile:
“Death-bed marriages are not as unusual as you may happen to think them, Miss Bower. And if there were more such marriages, there would be fewer unhappy wives.”
She smiled wanly, and in the midst of her own wretchedness, felt glad that Lucy would have her heart’s wish.
“They were more merciful in the old days,” muttered Guy Cheale. “In the days of the rack and the stake, any poor wretch in prison for murder could marry his sweetheart. You’re sorry that’s not the case now, eh, Miss Jean?”
“Yes,” said Jean, looking down at him. “I am very sorry that that’s not the case now.”
“Still there are various forms of prison, you know? I’m in prison here—very much in prison, if I may say so. Oh, how I’ve got to loathe the look of this room—for all poor Agatha tried to make it comfortable for me! I little thought when I first arrived here—only six weeks ago, Miss Bower—that it would become my marriage room. But in life—now don’t forget this, for it’s the last thing I shall say to you—in life it’s the strange, the unexpected, the astounding thing that as often as not happens——”