e murmured aloud.

And a voice replied from the belly of the pantechnicon:

"Who is there?"

All Denry's body shook.

"It's me!" said he.

"Not Mr Machin?" said the voice.

"Yes," said he. "I jumped on as it came down the street--and here we
are!"

"Oh!" cried the voice. "I do wish you could get round to me."

Ruth Earp's voice.

He saw the truth in a moment of piercing insight. Ruth had been playing
with him! She had performed a comedy for him in two acts. She had meant
to do what is called in the Five Towns "a moonlight flit." The
pantechnicon (doubtless from Birmingham, where her father was) had been
brought to her door late in the evening, and was to have been filled and
taken away during the night. The horses had been stabled, probably in
Ruth's own yard, and while the carmen were reposing the pantechnicon had
got off, Ruth in it. She had no money locked in her unlockable desk. Her
reason for not having paid the precious Mr Herbert Calvert was not the
reason which she had advanced.

His first staggered thought was:

"She's got a nerve! No mistake!"

Her duplicity, her wickedness, did not shock him. He admired her
tremendous and audacious enterprise; it appealed strongly to every cell
in his brain. He felt that she and he were kindred spirits.

He tried to clamber round the side of the van so as to get to the doors
at the back, but a pantechnicon has a wheel-base which forbids leaping
from wheel to wheel, especially, when the wheels are under water. Hence
he was obliged to climb on to the roof, and so slide down on to the top
of one of the doors, which was swinging loose. The feat was not simple.
At last he felt the floor of the van under half a yard of water.

"Where are you?"

"I'm here," said Ruth, very plaintively. "I'm on a table. It was the
only thing they had put into the van before they went off to have their
supper or something. Furniture removers are always like that. Haven't
you got a match?"

"I've got scores of matches," said Denry. "But what good do you suppose
they'll be now, all soaked through?"

A short silence. He noticed that she had offered no explanation of her
conduct towards himself. She seemed to take it for granted that he would
understand.

"I'm frightfully bumped, and I believe my nose is bleeding," said Ruth,
still more plaintively. "It's a good thing there was a lot of straw and
sacks here."

Then, after much groping, his hand touched her wet dress.

"You know