Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/226

222 He nodded.

"And I took Homo with me in my search for you. I knew that I should have a very small margin of time, and I thought if Homo performed the ceremony and I could confront van Heerden with the accomplished deed"

She sprang to her feet with a laugh.

"Oh, I see, I see," she said. "Oh, how splendid! And you went through this mock ceremony! Where was I?"

"You were at the window," he said miserably.

"But how lovely! And you were outside and your parson with the funny name—but that's delicious! So I wasn't married at all and this is your ring." She picked it up with a mocking light in her eyes, and held it out to him, but he shook his head.

"You were married," he said, in a voice which was hardly audible.

"Married? How?"

"Homo was not a fake! He was a real clergyman! And the marriage was legal!"

They looked at one another without speaking. On the girl's part there was nothing but pure amazement; but Stanford Beale read horror, loathing, consternation and unforgiving wrath, and waited, as the criminal waits for his sentence, upon her next words.

"So I am really married—to you," she said wonderingly.

"You will never forgive me, I know." He did not look at her now. "My own excuse is that I did what I did because I—wanted to save you. I might have sailed in with a gun and shot them up. I might have waited my chance and broken into the house. I might have taken a risk and surrounded the place with police, but that would have meant delay. I didn't do the normal things or take the normal view—I couldn't with you."

He did not see the momentary tenderness in her eyes, because he was not looking at her, and went on:

"That's the whole of the grisly story. Mr. Kitson will advise you as to what steps you may take to free yourself. It was a most horrible blunder, and it was all the