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The Secret of the Tower
by: Anthony Hope
Description:
Excerpt
CHAPTER I
DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST
"Just in time, wasn't it?" asked Mary Arkroyd.
"Two days before theвÐâthe ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?"
"Only onceвÐâin Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat, and dashed in one Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don't you remember?"
"Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I'd gone into colors. Oh, of course I've gone back into mourning now! And everything was readyвÐâsettlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. And then it all came out!"
"How?"
"Well, EustaceвÐâCaptain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, andвÐâand the bank wouldn't pay the check. Other checks turned up, too, and in the end the police went through his papers, and found letters fromвÐâwell, from her, you know. From Bogota. South America, isn't it? He'd lived there ten years, you know, growing somethingвÐâbeans, or coffee, or coffee-beans, or somethingвÐâI don't know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn't binding, but the ColonelвÐâwasn't it providential that the Colonel was home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was sure it was, and so were the lawyers."
"What happened then?"
"The great thing was to keep it quiet. Now, wasn't it? And there was the shell-shockвÐâor so EustaceвÐâCaptain Cranster, I meanвÐâsaid, anyhow. So, on the Colonel's advice, Mamma squared the check business andвÐâand they gave him twenty-four hours to clear out. PapaвÐâI call the Colonel Papa, you know, though he's really my stepfatherвÐâused a little influence, I think. Anyhow it was managed. I never saw him again, Mary."
"Poor dear! Was it very bad?"
"Yes! ButвÐâsuppose we had been married! Mary, where should I have been?"
Mary Arkroyd left that problem alone. "Were you very fond of him?" she asked.
"Awfully!" Cynthia turned up to her friend pretty blue eyes suffused in tears. "It was the end of the world to me. That there could be such men! I went to bed. Mamma could do nothing with me. Oh, well, she wrote to you about all that."
"She told me you were in a pretty bad way."
"I was just desperate! Then one dayвÐâin bedвÐâthe thought of you came. It seemed an absolute inspiration. I remembered the card you sent on my last birthdayвÐâyou've never forgotten my birthdays, though it's years since we metвÐâwith your new address hereвÐâand your 'Doctor,' and all the letters after your name! I thought it rather funny." A faint smile, the first since Miss Walford's arrival at Inkston, probably the first since Captain Eustace Cranster's shell-shock had wrought catastropheвÐâappeared on her lips. "How I waited for your answer! You don't mind having me, do you, dear? Mamma insisted on suggesting the P.G. arrangement. I was afraid you'd shy at it."
"Not a bit! I should have liked to have you anyhow, but I can make you much more comfortable with the P.G....