oftly up the stairs and crept into
the room, and Eve's whispered "Reuben!" broke the spell.

Yes, all had gone well. The body, rescued and safe, was now placed
within a house near to the churchyard in which Eve's mother lay: there
it was to be buried. And there, the next day, the commonplace event of
one among many funerals being over, the four thus linked by fate were
brought together, and Adam and Joan again stood face to face. Heightened
by the disguise which in order to avoid detection he was obliged to
adopt, the alteration in Adam was so complete that Joan stood aghast
before this seeming stranger, while a fresh smart came into Adam's open
wounds as he gazed upon the changed face of the once comely Joan.

A terrible barrier--such as, until felt, they had never dreaded--seemed
to have sprung up to separate and divide these two. Involuntarily they
shrank at each other's touch and quailed beneath each other's gaze,
while each turned with a feeling of relief to him and to her who now
constituted their individual refuge and support. Yes, strange as it
seemed to Adam and unaccountable to Joan, _she_ clung to Reuben, _he_ to
Eve, before whom each could be natural and unrestrained, while between
their present selves a great gulf had opened out which naught but time
or distance could bridge over.

So Adam went back to his hiding-place, Reuben to his shop, and Joan and
Eve to the old home in Knight's Passage, as much lost amid the crowd of
thronged London as if they had already taken refuge in that far-off land
which had now become the goal of Adam's thoughts and keen desires. Eve,
too, fearing some fresh disaster, was equally anxious for their
departure, and most of Reuben's spare time was swallowed up in making
the necessary arrangements. A passage in his name for himself and his
wife was secured in a ship about to start. At the last moment this
passage was to be transferred to Adam and Eve, whose marriage would take
place a day or two before the vessel sailed. The transactions on which
the successful fulfilment of these various events depended were mostly
conducted by Reuben, aided by the counsels of Mr. Osborne and the
assistance of Captain Triggs, whose good-fellowship, no longer withheld,
made him a valuable coadjutor.

Fortunately, Triggs's vessel, through some detention of its cargo, had
remained in London for an unusually long time, and now, when it did
sail, Joan was to take passage in it back to Polperro.

"