“Never mind that now,” I urged. “You must escape. Where shall you go?”
“Anywhere. It is just the same to me,” was her answer.
“Then I suggest you take the midday train up to Newcastle. There’s a quiet hotel where you may live comfortably and unnoticed, the Douglas, in Grainger Street West. Remain there a few days, and then move on across to Carlisle.”
“I know Carlisle,” she said. “I’ve broken the journey there often when going to Scotland.”
“But you are not known there?”
“Only at the County Hotel. I can go somewhere else, of course. But are you not coming?” she asked, quickly. “Remember my whole future depends upon you passing yourself off as my husband, William Morton.”
“For the next few days I think it would be as well for us to remain apart,” I replied, for truth to tell I had suddenly formed a plan, and was now anxious to make a flying visit up to London in order to put it into execution.
Her face fell.
“But you will return to me?” she asked, very anxiously.
“Yes—I will meet you in Carlisle in a week’s time. Go to Newcastle for four days, and thence to Carlisle. Indeed, change your address constantly. In Newcastle assume another name, and in Carlisle another. Do not go in the name of Morton again until we meet. I shall write to you at the post-office in Carlisle. To-day is Tuesday. Next Tuesday you shall hear from me.”