Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/96

92 "Enough?"

"Quite enough. You see, my idea was that you should write sufficient to put him off the track."

"I don't understand you—there's somebody in the passage," she said suddenly, and was walking to the door leading to the hall when he intercepted her.

"Miss Cresswell, I think you will understand me when I tell you that your father is dead, that the story I have told you about Beale being on his track is quite untrue, and that it is necessary for a purpose which I will not disclose to you that you should be my wife."

She sprang back out of his reach, white as death. Instinctively she realized that she was in some terrible danger, and the knowledge turned her cold.

"Your wife?" she repeated. "I think you must be mad, doctor."

"On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. I would have asked you before, but I knew that you would refuse me. Had our friend Beale not interfered, the course of true love might have run a little more smoothly than it has. Now I am going to speak plainly to you, Miss Cresswell. It is necessary that I should many you, and if you agree I shall take you away and place you in safe keeping. I will marry you at the registrar's office and part from you the moment the ceremony is completed. I will agree to allow you a thousand a year and I will promise that I will not interfere with you or in any way seek your society."

Her courage had revived during this recital of her future.

"What do you expect me to do," she asked contemptuously—"fall on your neck and thank you, you with your thousand a year and your church-door partings? No, doctor, if you are sane then you are either a great fool or a great scoundrel. I would never dream of marrying you under any circumstances. And now I think you had better go."

This time he did not stop her as she walked to the door and flung it open. She started back with an exclamation of fear, for there were two men in the hall.

"What do you"

So far she got when the doctor's arm was round her