to appear, and to ask for your wife--and there is my story proved to be
true! She may be the most suspicious woman living, as long as I am alone
with her. The moment you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave
me to do my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours?"

It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from under
his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say Yes!

"I suppose _you_ know how we are to be married?" he asked. "All I can
say is--_I_ don't."

"You do!" she retorted. "You know that we are in Scotland. You know that
there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in marriage, here. The
plan I have proposed to you secures my being received at the inn, and
makes it easy and natural for you to join me there afterward. The
rest is in our own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in
Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the thing is
done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception practiced on her,
after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained
our object in spite of her--and, what is more, we shall have gained it
without risk to _you._"

"Don't lay it all on my shoulders," Geoffrey rejoined. "You women
go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate
afterward--or how are we to keep it a secret?"

"Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother's house, as if
nothing had happened."

"And what is to become of _you?_"