Part 25 (2/2)
”It's a good thing you've ordered those new clothes,” she said.
”Why?”
”Because of the trial.”
”The trial between Oxford and Witt. What's that got to do with me?”
”They'll make you give evidence.”
”But I shan't give evidence. I've told Oxford I'll have nothing to do with it at all.”
”Suppose they make you? They can, you know, with a sub--sub something, I forget its name. Then you'll _have_ to go in the witness-box.”
”Me in the witness-box!” he murmured, undone.
”Yes,” she said. ”I expect it'll be very provoking indeed. But you'd want a new suit for it. So I'm glad you ordered one. When are you going to try on?”
CHAPTER XI
_An Escape_
One night, in the following June, Priam and Alice refrained from going to bed. Alice dozed for an hour or so on the sofa, and Priam read by her side in an easy-chair, and about two o'clock, just before the first beginnings of dawn, they stimulated themselves into a feverish activity beneath the parlour gas. Alice prepared tea, bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and eggs, pa.s.sing briskly from room to room. Alice also ran upstairs, cast a few more things into a valise and a bag already partially packed, and, locking both receptacles, carried them downstairs. Meantime the whole of Priam's energy was employed in having a bath and in shaving. Blood was shed, as was but natural at that ineffable hour. While Priam consumed the food she had prepared, Alice was continually darting to and fro in the house. At one moment, after an absence, she would come into the parlour with a mouthful of hatpins; at another she would rush out to a.s.sure herself that the indispensable keys of the valise and bag with her purse were on the umbrella-stand, where they could not be forgotten.
Between her excursions she would drink thirty drops of tea.
”Now, Priam,” she said at length, ”the water's hot. Haven't you finished? It'll be getting light soon.”
”Water hot?” he queried, at a loss.
”Yes,” she said. ”To wash up these things, of course. You don't suppose I'm going to leave a lot of dirty things in the house, do you? While I'm doing that you might stick labels on the luggage.”
”They won't need to be labelled,” he argued. ”We shall take them with us in the carriage.”
”Oh, Priam,” she protested, ”how tiresome you are!”
”I've travelled more than you have.” He tried to laugh.
”Yes, and fine travelling it must have been, too! However, if you don't mind the luggage being lost, I don't.”
During this she was collecting the crockery on a tray, with which tray she whizzed out of the room.
In ten minutes, hatted, heavily veiled, and gloved, she cautiously opened the front door and peeped forth into the lamplit street She peered to right and to left. Then she went as far as the gate and peered again.
”Is it all right?” whispered Priam, who was behind her.
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