der him the potent
beguiler.

'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 Ormon