“Derry,” she whispered, “have you realized that I don’t know where you are taking me?”
So the battle had ceased ere it had well begun. Perhaps she was hardly conscious—if she were, she gave no sign—of the crisis dissipated by that simple question. It closed with a clang the door of retreat. Henceforth they would dree their weird hand in hand. They would look only to the future, and stubbornly disregard the past. Shutting rebellious eyes against a mandate written in letters of fire, they would seek comfort in Herrick’s time-serving philosophy:
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.”
The train slackened speed. They were nearing a wayside station, and they drew apart in confusion like a pair of lovers surprised in some quiet corner. But Power laughed softly, and Nancy caught a new note of content in his voice.
“A nice thing!” he cried. “The girl is safe aboard the lugger, and I don’t even tell her to what quarter of the globe she is being lugged. But the sailing directions are easy. We breakfast at Boston. Don’t you dare say you cannot eat any breakfast!”
“I can, or I shall, at any rate,” she retorted bravely.
“Then Boston will be the best place on earth at nine o’clock. Afterward we take the Burlington road, and cross Lake Champlain. There’s a first-rate hotel on the west shore, and we stay there tonight. Tomorrow we plunge into the Adirondacks, and lose ourselves for as long as we please. How does that program suit my lady?”
“Whither thou goest——” she said, and her eyes fell.
Thus did they thrust dull care into the limbo of forgetfulness, and if there was standing at the gates of their Eden a frowning angel with a drawn sword, their vision was clouded, and they could not see him.