"Yes; and when she did that I was fearfully frightened. I knew that if she called the police against her own husband she must think that he'd really hurt me."
Philip leaned back in the carriage, dizzy with the overwhelming sense of the peril that had beset her,—her! Then, mastered by an overpowering impulse, he threw himself forward and caught her hands, covering them with kisses.
"Oh, my darling!" he gasped. "Oh, thank God you are safe!"
She dragged her hands away from him, and shrank back.
"Mr. Ashe!" she cried. "What is the matter with you? What are you doing?"
He did not attempt to retain his hold, but drew himself back into the darkness of his corner of the carriage. A strange calmness followed his outbreak; a sort of joyous uplifting which made him master of himself completely.
"I am sinning," he answered with a riotous sense of delight. "I am laying up remorse for all my future. I am telling you I love you; that I love you: I love you! I love you and I have saved you; and I shall brood over that, and do penance, and brood over it again, and do penance again, all my life long!"
"Oh, you are confused, excited, hurt," she cried. "You don't know what you are saying!"
"I know only too well what I am saying. I am saying that I"—
"Oh, for pity's sake, don't!" she moaned, putting out her hand.