V
John Lobey, landlord of “The Dog and Duck,” is on the track of a
mystery. Something to do with they anarchists and such-like. The chief
clue lies in the extraordinary fact that on three Sundays in succession
Parson has called “George Crosby, bachelor, of this parish,” when
everybody knows that there isn’t a Crosby in the parish, and that the
gentleman from London, who stayed at his inn for three weeks and comes
down Saturdays—for which purpose he leaves his bag and keeps on his
room—this gentleman from London, I tell you, is Mr. Geoffrey Carfax.
Leastways it was the name he gave.
John Lobey need not puzzle his head over it. Geoffrey Carfax is George
Crosby, and he is to be married next Saturday at a neighbouring village
church, in which “Gertrude Rosamund Morrison, spinster, of this parish,”
has also been called three times. Mr. and Mrs. Crosby will then go up to
London and break the news to Mrs. Morrison.
“Not until you are my wife,” said George firmly, “do you go into that
boarding-house again.” He was afraid to see her there.
“You dear,” said Rosamund; and she wrote to her mother that the weather
was so beautiful, and she was getting so much stronger, and her friend
so much wanted her to stay, that ... and so on. It is easy to think of
things like that when you are in love.
On the Sunday before the wedding George told her that he had practically
arranged about the little house in Bedford Park.
“And I’m getting on at the office rippingly. It’s really quite
interesting after all. I shall get another rise in no time.”
“You dear,” said Rosamund again. She pressed his hand tight and....
But really, you know, I think we might leave them now. They have both
much to learn; they have many quarrels to go through, many bitter
misunderstandings to break down; but they are alive at last. And so we
may say good-bye.