and a point in
the road from which the house could be observed, and at which Tom
could still be seen wandering about, thinking no doubt of Ayala. Here
Frank stopped as though determined not to turn to the lodge again. It
was wonderful to Gertrude that he should not have understood what she
had already said. When he talked of her mother going with them to the
Ostend marriage she was almost beside herself. This lover of hers was
a man of the world and must have heard of elopements. But now had
come a time in which she must be plain, unless she made up her mind
to abandon her plan altogether. "Frank," she said, "if you were to
run away with me, then we could be married at Ostend."

"Run away with you!"

"It wouldn't be the first time that such a thing has been done."

"The commonest thing in the world, my dear, when a girl has got her
money in her own hands. Nothing I should like so much."

"Money! It's always money. It's nothing but the money, I believe."

"That's unkind, Gertrude."

"Ain't you unkind? You won't do anything I ask."

"My darling, that hashed mutton and those baked potatoes are too
clear before my eyes."

"You think of nothing, I believe, but your dinner."

"I think, unfortunately, of a great many other things. Hashed mutton
is simply symbolical. Under the head of hashed mutton I include poor
lodgings, growlers when we get ourselves asked to eat a dinner at
somebody's table, limited washing-bills, table-napkins rolled up in
their dirt every day for a week, antimacassars to save the backs of
the chairs, a picture of you darning my socks while I am reading
a newspaper hired at a halfpenny from the public-house round the
corner, a pint of beer in the pewter between us,--and perhaps two
babies in one cradle because we can't afford to buy a second."

"Don't, Sir."

"In such an emergency I am bound to give you the advantage both of my
experience and imagination."

"Experience!"

"Not about the cradles! That is imagination. My darling, it won't do.
You and I have not been brought up to make ourselves happy on a very
limited income."

"Papa would be sure to give us the money," she said, eagerly.

"In such a matter as this, where your happiness is concerned, my
dear, I will trust no one."

"My happiness!"

"Yes, my dear, your happiness! I am quite willing to own the truth. I
am not fitted to make you happy, if I were put upon the hashed mutton
regime as I have described to you. I will not run