Day by day Philippa grew better and better. This appears to be the usual result, of excessively seasonable weather acting on a constitution previously undermined by bigamy, murder, and similar excesses.

   I spare all technical summary of the case, sufficient to say that this was one of the rare instances in which the mind, totally unhinged, is restored to its balance by sixty drops of laudanum taken fasting, with a squeeze of lemon, after violent exercise on an empty stomach.

   The case is almost unique; but, had things fallen out otherwise, this story could never have been got ready in time to romp in before the other Christmas Annuals.

   Matters would have become really

    too

   complicated!

   As Philippa recovered, it became more and more evident even to the most dilatory mind that the sooner she left the scene of her late unrehearsed performance the better.

   The baronet had not yet been missed—indeed, he never

    was

   missed, and that is one of the very most remarkable points in the whole affair.

   When he

    did

   come to be missed, however, he would naturally be sought for in the neighbourhood of the most recent and attractive of his wives.

   That wife was Philippa.

   Everything pointed to instant flight.

   But how was I to get Philippa to see this?

    Ex hypothesi

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