'We are safe here,' he said, and thrilled her with the 'we' behind the
curtaining leaded window-panes.

'What is it you propose?' Her voice was lower than she intended. To that
she ascribed his vivid flush. It kindled the deeper of her dark hue.

He mentioned her want of luggage, and the purchase of a kit.

She said, 'Have we the means?'

'We can adjust the means to the ends.'

'We must be sparing of expenses.'

'Will you walk part of the way?'

'I should like it.'

'We shall be longer on the journey.'

'We shall not find it tiresome, I hope.'

'We can say so, if we do.'

'We are not strangers.'

The recurrence of the 'we' had an effect of wedding: it was fatalistic,
it would come; but, in truth, there was pleasure in it, and the pleasure
was close to consciousness of some guilt when vowing itself innocent.

And, no, they were not strangers; hardly a word could they utter without
cutting memory to the quick; their present breath was out of the far
past.

Love told them both that they were trembling into one another's arms, not
voluntarily, against the will with each of them; they knew it would be
for life; and Aminta's shamed reserves were matched to make an obstacle
by his consideration for her good name and her station, for his own claim
to honest citizenship also.

Weyburn acted on his instinct at sight of the postillion and the chariot;
he flung the window wide and shouted. Then he said, 'It is decided,' and
he felt the rightness of the decision, like a man who has given a
condemned limb to the surgeon.

Aminta was passive as a water-weed in the sway of the tide. Hearing it to
be decided, she was relieved. What her secret heart desired, she kept
secret, almost a secret from herself. He was not to leave her; so she had
her permitted wish, she had her companion plus her exclamatory aunt, who
was a protection, and she had learnt her need of the smallest protection.

'I can scarcely believe I see you, my dear, dear child!' Mrs. Pagnell
cried, upon entering the small inn parlour; and so genuine was her
satisfaction that for a time she paid no heed to the stuffiness of the
room, the meanness of the place, the unfitness of such a hostelry to
entertain ladies--the Countess of Ormont!

'Eat here?' Mrs. Pagnell asked, observing the preparations for the meal.
Her pride quailed, her stomach abjured appetite. But she forbore from
asking how it was that the Countess of Ormont had come to the place.

At