flung her hands from him.
She at once laid hold of the strap to open the window. He burst into a
loud laugh.

"So the bird would escape," said he mockingly. "I thought as much."

She tugged at the strap but tugged in vain. The window refused to budge.
Then it flashed across her mind that it was all part of a plan. She was
to be trapped. The story of a Fleet marriage was a concoction to bait
the trap. She flung herself in the corner, turned her back upon her
captor and pulled her hood over her face.

She knew that for the time being she was helpless. What was the good of
wasting her strength in struggles, her spirit in remonstrance and be
laughed at for her pains? So she sat sullenly and turned a deaf ear to
Dorrimore's triumphant endearments.

That wrestle with the window strap had done one thing. It had told her
where she was. Lavinia knew her London well. Her rambles as a child had
not been confined to Charing Cross and St. Giles. She had often wandered
down to London Bridge. She loved the bustling life on the river; she
delighted in gazing into the shop windows of the quaint houses on the
bridge which to her youthful imagination seemed to be nodding at each
other, for so close were some that their projecting upper storeys nearly
touched.

She decided in that confused glance of hers through the window that the
coach was nearing the extreme end of the Poultry. She recognised the
Poultry Compter with its grim entrance and wondered whether the coach
would go straight on to Cornhill and then turn northward towards
Finsbury Fields, or southward to London Bridge.

For the moment all she thought of was her destination, and when she was
able without attracting her companion's, attention again to peep out of
the window she saw the coach was at the foot of London Bridge. The
driver had been compelled to walk his horses, so narrow and so dark was
the passage way.

The nightbirds of London were on their rambles looking out for prey; the
bridge was thronged. The people for the most part were half drunk--they
were the scourings from the low taverns in the Southwark Mint. Lavinia
had been revolving a plan of escape, but to launch herself among an
unruly mob ready for any devilry might be worse than remaining where she
was. But in spite of all that she did not cease to think about her plan
and watched for an opportunity when the worst of the rabble should have
passed.

Suddenly the coach came to a standstill. Shouts and oat