"What are you doing?" she asked faintly. She was too enfeebled to protest more vigorously.
"Leave it to me," said Denry. "This table is the only thing that can give your show away. We can't carry it back. We might meet some one."
He tied the fragments of the table together with rope that was afloat in the van, and attached the heavy iron bar whose function was to keep the doors closed. Then he sank the faggot of wood and iron in a distant corner of the basin.
"There!" he said. "Now you understand, nothing's happened except that a furniture van 's run off and fallen into the canal, owing to the men's carelessness.
"We can settle the rest later—I mean about the rent and so on."
They looked at each other.
Her skirts were nearly dry. Her nose showed no trace of bleeding, but there was a bluish lump over her left eye. Save that he was hatless, and that his trousers clung, he was not utterly unpresentable.
They were alone in the silent dawn.
"You 'd better go home by Acre Lane, not up Brougham Street," he said. "I 'll come in during the morning."
It was a parting in which more was felt than said.