“You dear!” he breathed; but she had her full answer in the color that suffused his bronzed face and the light that blazed in his eyes.
He had experienced no difficulty in securing the small coupé of a Pullman car to Boston. In that train there was little likelihood of any chance passenger recognizing them. In actual fact, they had the whole car to themselves. Nancy, who could not banish the notion that the whole world was watching her, was nervous and ill at ease until the train pulled out of the station. She even started and flushed violently when the conductor came to examine their tickets, whereupon the man smiled discreetly and Power laughed.
“You’re the poorest sort of conspirator,” he said, when the door was closed on the intruder. “We had better admit straight away that we’re a honeymoon couple, because everybody will know it the instant they look at you.”
But he failed to charm away the terror that oppressed her spirit. She felt herself a fugitive from some unseen but awful vengeance, and her heart quailed.
“Derry,” she said, almost on the verge of tears, “I’m beginning to be afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
Somehow, despite his utter lack of experience of woman’s ways, he had guessed that this moment would arrive, and was, to that extent, prepared for it.
“Of everything. I—I know that I alone am to blame. It is not too late for you to draw back.”
“Why do you think I might wish to draw back?”
“Because of the horrid exposure you must face in the near future.”