Never! He swore it.
As he registered this oath she rose lightly from her chair, and still jealously protecting her billowy skirts, began to peer about the room. Of a sudden she stopped and stood like a pointer dog, one finger raised to command his attention.
"What is in that basket?" she whispered excitedly.
There was no need to whisper, for not only the laundry but all the ground about it was absolutely deserted. But secrecy and flight have but one language and must conspire in whispers at the Pole itself. The basket in question, which lay in the darkest corner of the room, was of the description commonly in use among laundresses when they would return the purified objects of their toil. Bending over this, Nette fumbled a moment among its contents, and with a triumphant exclamation held up to Antony's bewildered vision a fresh, creased garment striped alternately with blue and white.
"And here is the apron! And here is the cap!" she murmured exultantly, "now I defy that horrid Mr. Williamson to find 108 me! 'A marked woman,' indeed!"
Instantly the feasibility of the plan struck him, and he congratulated her warmly.
"Now all we need is to know where we are," he assured her, "and enough money to get away from it, wherever it is, and we are safe! I will step out and look about a bit while you change your dress; I feel confident that we shall find some means--luck would not have the heart to desert us now!"
He tiptoed, needlessly, it is true, down to the laundry, and in the very act of opening the door stumbled upon a plump old gentleman-- the very gentleman upon whose doubtless paternal arm the frost-like bride had preceded Antony to the altar. Ere the youth had time to catch his breath the portly one addressed him querulously.
"Oh! how d'ye do? So dark in here--senseless place to send a man! No more sweet peas, that I can see--can you? Pack-horse, too, I suppose like the rest of us? Fine business for my guests!"
"There is not a sweet pea left, sir," said Antony respectfully, "and if there were any I should certainly not allow you to undertake the transportation of them. You have enough on your 109 mind, I should say." With a long drawn sigh the portly gentleman sank upon an inverted wash tub and wrung his hands miserably.