“Just as soon as you like.”

Agnes took another of those long breaths.

“How soon could it be?”

Mr. Drake’s heart was now beating so hard that he found it very difficult to remember the little he knew about the rules for getting married. He said rather stumblingly,

“I think it takes about three days.”

“I want to be married in church-” And there she caught herself up. “You must think this very strange. You won’t understand, but I will try and tell you. You said that about my being a slave, and I knew it was true, but I didn’t think I could get away. I was going to tell you so, and see you once and say good-bye. And then something happened. I can’t tell you about it. It was something you wouldn’t think-no, I can’t tell you about it-you wouldn’t understand-I don’t understand myself, but it made me feel as if I couldn’t go on. Only you see I don’t know how long I shall go on feeling like that, and if we were married I couldn’t go back, but if we weren’t-I might.” Her voice broke. She said with a gasp, “I’m so dreadfully afraid-about that.”

“About going back-do you mean now?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no, of course I must go back-now. I didn’t mean that- I didn’t mean going back with my body at all, I meant going back with my mind-slipping back again after I’d climbed a little way out.”

Mr. Drake took both her hands and held them.

“Agnes, look at me! And listen to me! You’re never going back like that-not even if you say you want to, not even if you tell me you’ve changed your mind! You are not going back! And now we’ll set about finding out just how soon we can be married.”

CHAPTER 15

Giles didn’t ring up. He walked in after six o’clock and found Meade in the drawing-room, huddled in one of the big chairs. Ivy shut the door behind him and went away. She thought him ever so nice, and Miss Meade ever so lucky only nobody would have thought it the way she’d been looking all day. She went back into her slip of a kitchen and sang in a shrill, childish voice:

“I like your lips, I like your eyes,

You like my lips? You like my eyes

To hypnotize you?”

Meade got up, a white little ghost of the girl he had kissed last night. He kissed her now, and found her shaking and cold.

“My sweet, what is it?”

But she only shook and shook.

He sat down in the chair and rocked her in his arms.

“Silly little thing! What’s the matter?”

He could feel her little body shaken with sobs, but no voice, no words.

“Meade darling, what is it-what’s the matter? Can’t you stop crying and tell me? Look here, you must!”

Yes, she must. And when she had told him, they would never sit like this again. It would be all over, and finished, and done with. Just for a moment more she let herself feel the warmth, the strength, the love that held her. Then she lifted her head from his shoulder.

“Giles-you said you didn’t know her-”

“Lots of people I don’t know. Which particular one? And why have you been crying yourself into a jelly?”

“Carola Roland-you said you didn’t know her.”

“It sounds a pretty phoney name. Carola Roland-bet you anything you like she didn’t start that way, whoever she is.”

She was sitting up now, leaning away from him against the arm of the chair, looking into his face, her grey eyes wide and dark, her face quite drained of colour.

“She says her name isn’t Roland at all.”

“Darling, did anyone ever suppose it was?”

“She says it’s Armitage.”

“What!”

“She says you married her.”

Giles put his hands on her shoulders. They were heavy enough to hurt, and they gripped her so hard that there were bruises afterwards.

“Have you gone out of your mind?”

Meade felt a little better. He was furious-he was hurting her. She felt better. She said in rather a stronger voice,

“No. That’s what she says. She showed me a letter-”

“From whom?”

“From you. It was your writing. It said you would give her four hundred a year.”

The grip held, but the anger was gone from his face. His eyes were intent, hard, and very blue.

“Four hundred a year? Somebody’s mad, my sweet-I hope it isn’t you or me.”

“That’s what the letter said. And it said she was to drop the name of Armitage. It said of course she had a perfect legal right to the name, but she wouldn’t get the four hundred a year unless she dropped it. And was it worth all that? And that was your last word. And you called her ‘My dear Carola’.”

“It’s a plant,” said Giles.

He let go of her so suddenly that she felt giddy. Then he got to his feet, pulling her up with him.

“Giles-what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to see Miss Carola Roland.”

It was she who was holding him now.

“Giles-wait! You can’t go like this. Oh, Giles-are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I tell you it’s a plant. She’s heard I’ve lost my memory and she’s trying it on.”

Meade was trembling so much that he had to put his arm about her.

“Giles-suppose it was true. I wouldn’t have believed anything she said, but it was your letter-not only the writing-it was like hearing you talk. And there was a photograph-”

“What sort of photograph?”

“A big one-of you-head and shoulders-with ‘Giles’ written across the corner.”

He gave a quick angry laugh. The hard blue eyes had a fighting glint in them.

“As long as it wasn’t a wedding group! You don’t have to marry every girl who’s got your photograph! Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough? It was your letter-it was. You’ve forgotten writing it, and you’ve forgotten her. If you had married her you might have forgotten that too. Giles-you forgot me-”

Her voice wrung his heart.

“Meade, I didn’t-not with anything that mattered. I told you so. I loved you at once, that day at Kitty Van Loo’s, and I never stopped loving you. You don’t know how I had to hold on to myself in that taxi. It seemed the rightest thing in the world for me to kiss you. I did put my arm around you, you know, and I had to hang on like mad not to kiss you. Doesn’t that just show? Now stop wobbling and listen to me! The minute you began to talk about that Carola woman I sized her up. She sounds like a gold-digger, and I don’t like gold-diggers. And she’s probably a synthetic blonde, and I don’t like synthetic blondes. I don’t pretend I’ve been a saint, but I’m really not a fool. I can assure you that I should never have dreamed of marrying Miss Carola Roland.”

“It might have been a long time ago-”

“Oh, no-it’s only the last eighteen months or so that’s gone foggy. I don’t see myself falling for Carola at any time after I was out of my teens. You haven’t been using your head, you know. I was engaged to you, wasn’t I? I hadn’t lost my memory then. Was I planning a spot of bigamy, or had there been a divorce?”

“No-I asked her that. She said no, you were just all washed-up.”

“Then I was going to lure you into a bigamous marriage, I suppose. Wake up, darling! I didn’t hint at having a guilty secret, did I?”

“N-no-” Her eyes widened suddenly.

“What’s the matter now?”

“I was trying to think-whether you ever really said-anything about getting married. You said you loved me, and you asked me if I loved you, but… Of course there was very little time-only three days… Oh, Giles, it does seem such a long time ago!”

He picked her up, kissed her hard, and set her down again.

“I shouldn’t have talked like that to a girl like you unless I meant business-not my line of country. Now you sit down good and peaceful and keep on telling yourself that everything’s going to be all right! If you cry any more, I’ll beat you. I’m going to have a heart-to-heart talk with Miss Carola Roland, and I think she’s going to be sorry she tried it on.”

Meade ran after him into the lobby.