A. M. Williamson

“ As a married woman it would have been different. I meant to make you love me; and even now, Karine, what has happened that need change anything between us? You are not a conventional little fool, as are some women I could name, and the love of a man like me must create some impression on your nature. The obstacle which you think stands between us shall be removed, the marriage ceremony can again be performed over us–secretly, if you choose. ”

“ No one knows that we are here–no one in your world, at least–and I intend that we shall have a protracted honeymoon. You heard how some vagabond, some tramp who wished to get in, failed just now? Well, it is just as difficult for strangers to escape from the House by the Lock as it is for them to effect an entrance. ”

“ She would have been true to you through everything, she said–poor misguided woman–if she had not been taken ill and stopped in London instead of going to France, as she had promised, and so seen in the papers about our coming marriage. What mockery to call it that; and yet, I thank heaven that it need only be mockery–that it is not real.
"I wonder that the shock of finding that woman concealed in my room–waiting for me to come–did not drive me mad. But I am not mad, and such wit as I have I warn you I shall devote to thwarting you, Carson Wildred. ”

“ You understand to what this points, perhaps? If you show yourself amenable to reason I shall consider you a wife to be proud of, and there is no ambition which we need cherish in vain if we are to live our lives together. ”

“ So died a man who had accomplished the death of many another, and through his humble accomplice (who now breaks stones at Portland) , and the wretched wife found prisoned in a room upstairs, the secrets of his numerous crimes and the dark House by the Lock were revealed. ”