on a causeway between miles of tenements
where women and children, overtaken by lassitude, hung out of the
windows: then the blackness of the tunnel, and Honora closed her eyes.
Four minutes, three minutes, two minutes . . . . The motion ceased. At
the steps of the car a uniformed station porter seized her bag; and she
started to walk down the long, narrow platform. Suddenly she halted.

"Drop anything, Miss?" inquired the porter.

"No," answered Honora, faintly. He looked at her in concern, and she
began to walk on again, more slowly.

It had suddenly come over her that the man she was going to meet she
scarcely knew! Shyness seized her, a shyness that bordered on panic. And
what was he really like, that she should put her whole trust in him? She
glanced behind her: that way was closed: she had a mad desire to get
away, to hide, to think. It must have been an obsession that had
possessed her all these months. The porter was looking again, and he
voiced her predicament.

"There's only one way out, Miss."

And then, amongst the figures massed behind the exit in the grill, she
saw him, his face red-bronze with the sea tan, his crisp, curly head
bared, his eyes alight with a terrifying welcome; and a tremor of a fear
akin to ecstasy ran through her: the fear of the women of days gone by
whose courage carried them to the postern or the strand, and fainted
there. She could have taken no step farther--and there was no need. New
strength flowed from the hand she held that was to carry her on and on.

He spoke her name. He led her passive, obedient, through the press to the
side street, and then he paused and looked into her burning face.

"I have you at last," he said. "Are you happy?"

"I don't know," she faltered. "Oh, Hugh, it all seems so strange! I don't
know what I have done."

"I know," he said exultantly; "but to save my soul I can't believe it."

She watched him, bewildered, while he put her maid into a cab, and by an
effort roused herself.

"Where are you going, Hugh?"

"To get married," he replied promptly.

She pulled down her veil.

"Please be sensible," she implored. "I've arranged to go to a hotel."

"What hotel?"

"The--the Barnstable," she said. The place had come to her memory on the
train. "It's very nice and--and quiet--so I've been told. And I've
telegraphed for my rooms."

"I'll humour you this once," he answered, and gave the order.

She got into the carriage. It had blue cushions