It was noon before Rennett's car deposited Lydia Meredith at the door of her lodging.
She found Mrs. Morgan in a great state of anxiety, and the stout little woman almost shed tears of joy at the sight of her.
"Oh, miss, you've no idea how worried I've been," she babbled, "and they've been round here from your newspaper office asking where you are. I thought you had been run over or something, and the Daily Megaphone have sent to all the hospitals----"
"I have been run over," said Lydia wearily. "My poor mind has been under the wheels of a dozen motor-buses, and my soul has been in a hundred collisions."
Mrs. Morgan gaped at her. She had no sense of metaphor.
"It's all right, Mrs. Morgan," laughed her lodger over her shoulder as she went up the stairs. "I haven't really you know, only I've had a worrying time--and by the way, my name is Meredith."
Mrs. Morgan collapsed on to a hall chair.
"Meredith, miss?" she said incredulously. "Why I knew your father----"
"I've been married, that's all," said Lydia grimly. "You told me yesterday that I should be married romantically, but even in the wildest flights of your imagination, Mrs. Morgan, you could never have supposed that I should be married in such a violent, desperate way. I'm going to bed." She paused on the landing and looked down at the dumbfounded woman. "If anybody calls for me, I am not at home. Oh, yes, you can tell the Megaphone that I came home very late and that I've gone to bed, and I'll call to-morrow to explain."
"But, miss," stammered the woman, "your husband----"
"My husband is dead," said the girl calmly. She felt a brute, but somehow she could not raise any note of sorrow. "And if that lawyer man comes, will you please tell him that I shall have twenty thousand pounds in the morning," and with that last staggering statement, she went to her room, leaving her landlady speechless.