Читать книгу The 'Phone Booth Mystery онлайн

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George was right. The knowledge of the tragedy that necessarily would affect them both so strongly must be kept from Grace as long as possible. That it should have occurred on their wedding day, and that the victim should have been the woman who was to have been the principal wedding guest seemed monstrous, incredible. Yet it was true! Hastily he stuffed the evening paper Winston had given him into his pocket. If he had kept it in his hand he could not have resisted the impulse to read the fatal news, and he dare not trust himself to do that at present. Grace’s voice, with a new, nervous note in it, roused him to the necessity of facing the situation.

“Roger! Do take care, dear. You’ll lose your hat or——”

“Or my head? Mustn’t lose that, or it will be all up with me, considering that I lost my heart ages ago!”

He laughed as he settled himself in the seat opposite her, but he did not meet her eyes, dark with trouble and perplexity. She loved him with all the strength of her nature—a nature essentially sweet and pure and steadfast. She thought she understood his every mood; but now, on this supreme day that linked her life to his once and for all, his manner was so strange that her heart failed her.