Edgar Wallace

“ She had never thought of marriage seriously, and really a marriage such as this presented no terrors and might, had the prelude been a little less exciting, been accepted by her with relief. The prospect of being a wife in name only, even the thought that her husband would be, for the next twenty years, behind prison walls, neither distressed nor horrified her. Somehow she accepted Glover's statement that Meredith was innocent, without reservation. ”

“ At seven o'clock in the morning—a grey, cheerless morning it was, thought Lydia, looking out of the window—Mrs. Rennett came in with some tea.
"I'm afraid you haven't slept, my dear," she said with a glance at the bed. "It's very trying for you."
She laid her hand upon the girl's arm and squeezed it gently.
"And it's very trying for all of us," she said with a whimsical smile. "I expect we shall all get into fearful trouble."
That had occurred to the girl too, remembering the gloomy picture which Glover had painted in the car. ”

“ She could not marry, but then she did not want to marry. She was not the kind to fall in love, she told herself, she was too independent, too sophisticated, and understood men and their weaknesses only too well. ”