we time?"

They looked at their watches.

"Six minutes," Clara said.

Vernon's had stopped, penetrated by his total drenching.

She reproached herself. He laughed to quiet her. "My dies solemnes are
sure to give me duckings; I'm used to them. As for the watch, it will
remind me that it stopped when you went."

She raised the glass to him. She was happier and hoped for some little
harshness and kindness mixed that she might carry away to travel with
and think over.

He turned the glass as she had given it, turned it round in putting it
to his lips: a scarce perceptible manoeuvre, but that she had given it
expressly on one side.

It may be hoped that it was not done by design. Done even accidentally,
without a taint of contrivance, it was an affliction to see, and coiled
through her, causing her to shrink and redden.

Fugitives are subject to strange incidents; they are not vessels lying
safe in harbour. She shut her lips tight, as if they had stung. The
realizing sensitiveness of her quick nature accused them of a loss of
bloom. And the man who made her smart like this was formal as a railway
official on a platform.

"Now we are both pledged in the poison-bowl," said he. "And it has the
taste of rank poison, I confess. But the doctor prescribed it, and at
sea we must be sailors. Now, Miss Middleton, time presses: will you
return with me?"

"No! no!"

"Where do you propose to go?"

"To London; to a friend--Miss Darleton."

"What message is there for your father?"

"Say I have left a letter for him in a letter to be delivered to you."

"To me! And what message for Willoughby?"

"My maid Barclay will hand him a letter at noon."

"You have sealed Crossjay's fate."

"How?"

"He is probably at this instant undergoing an interrogation. You may
guess at his replies. The letter will expose him, and Willoughby does
not pardon."

"I regret it. I cannot avoid it. Poor boy! My dear Crossjay! I did not
think of how Willoughby might punish him. I was very thoughtless. Mr.
Whitford, my pin-money shall go for his education. Later, when I am a
little older, I shall be able to support him."

"That's an encumbrance; you should not tie yourself to drag it about.
You are unalterable, of course, but circumstances are not, and as it
happens, women are more subject to them than we are."

"But I will not be!"

"Your command of them is shown at the present moment."

"Because I determine to be free?"

"No: because