"Miriam," I said boldly, "we can't face it. Let us go away together and get married quietly when we get to England."
The idea seemed to strike her as something rather dreadful and rather pleasing at the same time. She blushed, but her eyes were bright.
"Yes, we could. Let us go away in a week's time, before all the fuss begins, and escape it."
"It really would be rather fun!" She was half joking, half in earnest, but, at any rate, she had admitted the idea into her mind, and gradually as I pressed her, making light of all difficulties, she began to waver towards acquiescence, in earnest. What her mother would think was the chief obstacle.
"I am sure she would be just as relieved as we should at escaping all the bother," I said. "You could leave her a letter."
"I could come back and see her after we were married."
"Yes, of course. We would come back to Upsidonia whenever we wanted some more--I mean whenever you wanted to. Oh, Miriam, say yes!"
She did not say yes at once, but she did a little later. She had a great sense of adventure, and became even excited at the prospect, when she had once consented to it. We decided to go away together very early in the morning in a week's time.
As long as I remained in Miriam's garden, I was safe from interruption. If the police had been waiting to arrest me for a crime, they could not have got at me, or even summoned me from outside, but must have waited until I chose to appear.
But when we had made our plans together, I thought I had better go and see if they had called again, and, if they had, give them my finger-prints and get it over.
When Miriam and I left her garden and shut the gate behind us, the first thing we saw was the ragged figure of Lord Potter, who was shuffling about with his shoulders hunched up and his hands in his pockets, looking at the flower-beds. Hovering about at some little distance from him was Mollie, who made excited signs in our direction when she saw us.
Lord Potter saw us at the same time, and came across the lawn with a very disagreeable expression on his dirty face. "The police are waiting for you up at the house, sir," he said. "It is just like you to take refuge in a lady's garden. But if you think you are going to escape me this time you are much mistaken. Off with you at once! I am not in a mood to be kept waiting any longer."