he emergency was momentous, and he dared not
lose patience. He found her large pin even, while she stood trembling,
and stuck it into her shawl as if it had been a skewer. "You never
would have come if you had not been my guardian angel," said the
deceitful young man, whose heart was beating high with anxiety and
hope. "Nobody else would do for me what you are going to do--but I
have always had confidence in my aunt Dora. Come, come! We have not a
moment to lose."

This was how he overcame Miss Dora's scruples. Before she knew what
had happened she was being hurried through the clear summer night past
the long garden-walls of Grange Lane. The stars were shining overhead,
the leaves rustling on all sides in the soft wind--not a soul to be
seen in the long line of darkling road. Miss Dora had no breath to
speak, however much disposed she might have been. She could not
remonstrate, having full occasion for all her forces to keep her feet
and her breath. When Mr Wentworth paused for an instant to ask "which
way did she go?" it was all Miss Dora could do to indicate with her
finger the dark depths of Prickett's Lane. Thither she was immediately
carried as by a whirlwind. With a shawl over her head, fastened
together wildly by the big pin--with nothing but little satin
slippers, quite unfit for the exertion required of them--with an
agonised protest in her heart that she had never, never in her life
gone after any improper person before--and, crowning misfortune of
all, with a horrible consciousness that she had left the garden-door
open, hoping to return in a few minutes, Miss Dora Wentworth, single
woman as she was, and ignorant of evil, was whirled off in pursuit of
the unfortunate Rosa into the dark abysses of Prickett's Lane.

While this terrible Hegira was taking place, Mr Proctor sat opposite
Gerald Wentworth, sipping his claret and talking of Italy. "Perhaps
you have not read Burgon's book," said the late Rector. "There is a
good deal of valuable information in it about the Catacombs, and he
enters at some length into the question between the Roman Church and
our own. If you are interested in that, you should read it," said Mr
Proctor; "it is a very important question."

"Yes," said Gerald; and then there followed a pause. Mr Proctor did
not know what to make of the faint passing smile, the abstracted look,
which he had vaguely observed all the evening; and he looked so
inquiringly across the table that Gerald's ne