The gathering gloom without had now made the cab's interior so dark that she could not see the rigid lines in his face, nor could she make out by any convulsive movement that his hands were clenched, and that beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. But she knew, yes, she knew, and timid fingers caught his arm.
"You are not to think me mad or cruel to speak in this way," she cooed. "I have looked into my very soul, Dear, and a great peace has come from my self-communing. You have wearied your clever brain with guesses as to my motive in meeting you tonight, and I giggled like a schoolgirl today at the thought of your absolute amazement when you read my note bidding you prepare to leave Newport. But it is all part and parcel of my plan, Derry, which rests on your reply to one small question. Do you want to go away from _me_? Are you ready to face a world in which there will be no Nancy, never, no more?"
"Ah, you are trying me beyond endurance!" he almost sobbed.
"But you _must_ tell me _that_, Derry. I have gone a long way daringly. It is my privilege, my right. If you love me, you must expect it of me, because, as things are, I am forced to take the first step. But a woman must be sure that she is loved, and her lover alone can still her doubts."
An impulse stronger than his own strength of will brought strange, wild words to his dry lips.
"Nancy," he said, with the calm accents of despair, "I have never loved any woman but you, and, God willing, I never shall!"
"That is all that really matters," she sighed, with a contented note in her voice that rang in his ears like a chord of sweet music heard from afar in the depths of a forest.
After that they sat in silence, she seemingly wrapped in dreams, and he wandering in a maze wherein impassable walls showed no gateway of escape; though the guarded path was alluring, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers.
The cab stopped, and they alighted; for Nancy, demurely self-controlled, announced that she meant to take him for a stroll along the Cliff Walk. Power, deaf and blind to externals, would have accompanied her straightway; but she laughingly called him back from the clouds.
"Tell the cabman to wait," she said, "and give him some money, or the poor fellow will think that we have come this long way from town purposely, and mean to go off without payment."
