E. R. Punshon

“ An hour later, by the fire in the sitting-room, Ella suddenly remembered tea.
“Good gracious! You must be starving,” she cried, smitten with remorse. “And there's poor mother waiting upstairs all this time. Oh, Rupert, are you very hungry?”
“Starving,” he asserted, but held her to him as closely as ever.
“I must get the tea,” she protested. She put one cheek against his and sighed contentedly.
“It's nice to see the real you,” she murmured. “But oh, Rupert, I do miss your dear bristly beard.” ”

“ And on this point her mind was irrevocably made up since, after all, whether Rupert would accept refusal or not would still remain entirely for him to decide.
At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak, and when she ran to the window to peep, she saw with a kind of chill surprise that there was a stranger coming through.
“Some one he's sent,” she said to herself. “He doesn't want to come himself and so he has sent some one else instead. I am glad.” ”

“ The one public proceeding had been the inquest of Deede Dawson, and that the coroner, at the request of the police eagerly searching for Walter Dunsmore, had made as brief and formal as possible. Under his direction the jury had returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide,” and Ella's illness had had at least one good result of making it impossible for her to attend to give her evidence in person.
At a trial, of course, everything would have had to be told in full, but both Allen, Deede Dawson's accomplice, and Walter Dunsmore, his instigator and employer, had vanished utterly. ”