ed--he would do everything that was wanted. "Already,"
he said, "the Office will have received from the doctor a notification
of my death. Yesterday evening he wrote to everybody--to my
brother--confound him!--and to the family solicitor. Every moment that
I stay here increases the danger of my being seen and recognised--after
the Office has been informed that I am dead."

"Where are we to go?"

"I have thought of that. There is a little quiet town in Belgium where
no English people ever come at all. We will go there, then we will take
another name; we will be buried to the outer world, and will live, for
the rest of our lives, for ourselves alone. Do you agree?"

"I will do, Harry, whatever you think best."

"It will be for a time only. When all is ready, you will have to step
to the front--the will in your hand to be proved--to receive what is
due to you as the widow of Lord Harry Norland. You will go back to
Belgium, after awhile, so as to disarm suspicion, to become once more
the wife of William Linville."

Iris sighed heavily, Then she caught her husband's eyes gathering with
doubt, and she smiled again.

"In everything, Harry," she said, "I am your servant. When shall we
start?"

"Immediately. I have only to write a letter to the doctor. Where is
your bag? Is this all? Let me go first to see that no one is about.
Have you got the will? Oh! it is here--yes--in the bag. I will bring
along the bag."

He ran downstairs, and came up quickly.

"The nurse has returned," he said. "She is in the spare room."

"What nurse?"

"The nurse who came after Fanny left. The man was better, but the
doctor thought it wisest to have a nurse to the end," he explained
hurriedly, and she suspected nothing till afterwards. "Come down
quietly--go out by the back-door--she will not see you." So Iris
obeyed. She went out of her own house like a thief, or like her own
maid Fanny, had she known. She passed through the garden, and out of
the garden into the road. There she waited for her husband.

Lord Harry sat down and wrote a letter.

"Dear Doctor," he said, "while you are arranging things outside an
unexpected event has happened inside. Nothing happens but the
unexpected. My wife has come back. It is the most unexpected event of
any. Anything else might have happened. Most fortunately she has not
seen the spare bedroom, and has no idea of its contents.

"At this point reassure yourself.

"My wife has gone.

"She found