“Yes,” she said steadily; her gaze did not move. “I even bought the dummy pearls to match the real ones as near as I could. I’d been with Emma to buy them in the first place, and I knew what they were like. But when I was there my nerves went. I slipped the dummies into Gerry’s pocket never dreaming there would be any trouble. . . .”
She broke off, and there was silence for a few minutes, Mannering was trying to get this new fact out of his mind; it was amazing enough, but it didn’t matter now. True, it cleared up the mystery of the dummies, but everything other than the fact of Lorna’s marriage was unimportant.
“It’s all right,” he said at last. “Nothing happened that wasn’t soon put right. But. . .”
She flung her head back and ran her fingers through her hair.
“The marriage can’t be put right,” she said. “Oh, I could let it be known; I could get a divorce. But it would break Dad — he’s so scared of scandal. Mother too. Somehow I don’t think I could find the courage to — to let it come out.”
“You’d rather pay him — and have your life a misery,” said Mannering, but there was no sting in his words, and his voice strengthened suddenly. “We’ll find a way out, my dear. We
Lorna smiled; her eyes held real humour, and he marvelled at the way she could forget the thing that must have made her wish, often enough, that she was dead.
“The Baron can work,” she said, and they laughed together.
THE END
