"We must make quicker time, my darling," he said.
Was it a sob he heard coming from the girl's lips? Ida May seemed to have suddenly awakened to a sense of what she had done. A brief half hour since she had been in the midst of a brilliant party, and now, scarcely knowing how it had come about, she found herself flying with the handsome lover, whom she had known but a few short weeks, going she knew not whither.
The awakening came to her like a terrible shock.
"Royal!" she cried, "oh, Royal, what have we done? Where are we going? I did not mean to run away. I must have been mad. Let us go back again!"
As she spoke, the great clock from some adjoining tower struck the hour of twelve.
"We are too late," he said. "We have burned our bridges behind us. They are unmasking now, and they have missed you. They will soon institute a search."
She clasped his arm.
"Oh, Royal! I must tell you all!"
The hot, trembling hand clung to him, the lovely young face was full of awful grief.