acing his spirit for the adventure of an
_enlevement_, the door behind him opened and shut with some noise, and
Evanthia Solaris, buttoning a glove, stood before him, a slender black
phantom in the darkness.

He was dumfounded for a moment, until the full significance of her
action was borne in upon him. She had surrendered her destiny to his
hands after all. It was with him that she was willing to venture forth
into unknown perils. What a girl! He experienced an accession of
spiritual energy as he advanced hurriedly in the transparent obscurity
of the garden. She did not move as he touched her save to continue
buttoning a glove.

"Ready?" he whispered.

She gave him an enigmatic glance from behind the veil she was wearing
and thrust her body slightly against his with a gesture at once delicate
and eloquent of a subtle mood. She was aware that this man, come up out
of the sea like some fabled monster of old, to do her bidding, was the
victim of her extraordinary personality; yet she never forgot that his
admiration, his love, his devotion, his skill, and his endurance were no
more than her rightful claim. Incomparably equipped for a war with fate,
she regarded men always as the legionaries of her enemy. And that
gesture of hers, which thrilled him as a signal of surrender, was a
token of her indomitable confidence and pride.

"For anything," she said, smiling behind her veil. "What have you done?"

"I've got a boat," he whispered. "It's all ready. Where are they?" He
pointed to the house.

"Asleep," she said, pulling the gate open.

"Don't make so much noise," he begged. She stopped and turned on him.

"I can go out if I like," she said calmly. "You think I am a slave
here?"

"Oh, no, no. You don't understand...." he began.

"I understand you think I am afraid of these people. Phtt! Where is the
carriage?"

"It's only a little way. You can't get boats down at the landings. Just
a little way."

"All right." She pulled the gate to and the latch clicked. And then she
put her gloved hand lightly on his arm, trusting her fate to him, and
they walked down the road in the darkness.

"Have you got everything?" he asked timidly.

She did not reply at once. She was looking steadily ahead, thinking in a
rapt way of the future, which was full of immense possibilities, and
which she was prepared to meet with a dynamic courage peculiarly her
own. And at that moment, though her hand lay on the arm of this man who
wa