"I say, Alice," he said, as she stirred, "you remember when first I told you I could paint?"
"Yes," she said.
"Well, at first you thought I was daft. You thought my mind was wandering, didn't you?"
"No," she said, "I only thought you'd got a bee in your bonnet." She smiled demurely.
"Well, I hadn't, had I?"
"Seeing the money you've made, I should just say you hadn't," she handsomely admitted. "Where we should be without it I don't know."
"You were wrong, weren't you? And I was right?"
"Of course," she beamed.
"And do you remember that time I told you I was really Priam Farll?"
She nodded, reluctantly.
"You thought I was absolutely mad. Oh, you needn't deny it! I could see well enough what your thoughts were."
"I thought you weren't quite well," she said frankly.
"But I was, my child. Now I've got to tell you again that I am Priam Farll. Honestly I wish I wasn't, but I am. The deuce of it is that that fellow that came here this morning has found it out, and there's going to be trouble. At least there has been trouble, and there may be more."
She was impressed. She knew not what to say.
"But, Priam----"
"He's paid me five hundred to-day for that picture I've just finished."
"Five hund----"
Priam snatched the notes from his pocket, and with a gesture pardonably dramatic he bade her count them.
"Count them," he repeated, when she hesitated.
"Is it right?" he asked when she had finished.
"Oh, it's right enough," she agreed. "But, Priam, I don't like having all this money in the house. You ought to have called and put it in the bank."
"Dash the bank!" he exclaimed. "Just keep on listening to me, and try to persuade yourself I'm not mad. I admit I'm a bit shy, and it was all on account of that that I let that d--d valet of mine be buried as me."
"You needn't tell me you're shy," she smiled. "All Putney knows you're shy."
"I'm not so sure about that!" He tossed his head.
Then he began at the beginning and recounted to her in detail the historic night and morning at Selwood Terrace, with a psychological description of his feelings. He convinced her, in less than ten minutes, with the powerful aid of five hundred pounds in banknotes, that he in truth was Priam Farll.
And he waited for her to express an exceeding astonishment and satisfaction.
"Well, of course if you are, you are," she observed simply, regarding him with benevolent, possessive glances across the table. The fact was that she did not deal in names, she dealt in realities. He was her reality, and so long as he did not change visibly or actually--so long as he remained he--she did not much mind who he was. She added, "But I really don't know what you were dreaming of, Henry, to do such a thing!"
"Neither do I," he muttered.
Then he disclosed to her the whole chicanery of Mr. Oxford.
"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 11
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-butter, and eggs, passing 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 assure 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.
"Yes, I think so," she whispered.
Priam came out of the house with the bag in one hand and the valise in the other, a pipe in his mouth, a stick under his arm, and an overcoat on his shoulder. Alice ran up the steps, gazed within the house, pulled the door to silently, and locked it. Then beneath the summer stars she and Priam hastened furtively, as though the luggage had contained swag, up Werter Road towards Oxford Road. When they had turned the corner they felt very much relieved.
They had escaped.
It was their second attempt. The first, made in daylight, had completely failed. Their cab had been followed to Paddington Station by three other cabs containing the representatives and the cameras of three Sunday newspapers. A journalist had deliberately accompanied Priam to the booking office, had heard him ask for two seconds to Weymouth, and had bought a second to Weymouth himself. They had gone to Weymouth, but as within two hours of their arrival Weymouth had become even more impossible than Werter Road, they had ignominiously but wisely come back.
Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in London. Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were