Her blue eyes, wandering from the ruddy andirons, were arrested by the clock. What had happened? Was the clock still going? She listened, and heard it ticking.
"Is _that_ the right time?" she demanded incredulously.
He said, so low she could scarcely hear him: "Yes, Stray Lock. Must I close the story book and lay it away until another day?"
She rose, brushing the bright strand from her cheek; he stood up, pulled the tassel of an old-time bell rope, and, when the butler came, ordered the car.
She went away to her room, where Mrs. Quant swathed her in rain garments and veils, and secretly pressed into her hand a bottle containing "a suffusion" warranted to discourage any insidious advances of typod.
"A spoonful before meals, dearie," she whispered hoarsely; "and don't tell Mr. James--he'd be that disgusted with me for doin' of a Christian duty. I'll have some of my magic drops ready when you come to-morrow, and you can just lock the door and set and rock and enj'y them onto a lump of sugar."
A little dismayed, but contriving to look serious, Jacqueline thanked her and fled. Desboro put her into the car and climbed in beside her.
"You needn't, you know," she protested. "There are no highwaymen, are there?"
"Then why do you go to the station with me?"
He did not answer. She presently settled into her corner, and he wrapped her in the fur robe. Neither spoke; the lamplight flashed ahead through the falling rain; all else was darkness--the widest world of darkness, it seemed to her fancy, that she ever looked out upon, for it seemed to leave this man and herself alone in the centre of things.
Conscious of him beside her, she was curiously content not to look at him or to disturb the silence encompassing them. The sense of speed, the rush through obscurity, seemed part of it--part of a confused and pleasurable irresponsibility.
Later, standing under the dripping eaves of the station platform with him, watching the approaching headlight of the distant locomotive, she said:
"You have made it a very delightful day for me. I wanted to thank you."
He was silent; the distant locomotive whistled, and the vista of wet rails began to glisten red in the swift approach.
"I don't want you to go to town alone on that train," he said abruptly.