Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/125

 for his millions. I am independent of his legacies, independent of his patronage."

She stared at him, open-eyed.

"You never told me this before."

He shook his head a little despairingly.

"There are some things I can never tell you, May, and some things which you can never know till we are married. I only ask you to trust me."

"But suppose," she faltered, "you are not married within ten days, what will happen?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"'I am John's liege man of life and limb and of earthly regard,'" he quoted flippantly. "I shall wait hopefully for the only release that can come, the release which his death will bring. I hate saying that, for there is something about him that I like enormously, but that is the truth, and, May," he said, still holding her hand and looking earnestly into her face, "I don't want to feel like that about John Minute. I don't want to look forward to his end. I want to meet him without any sense