"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly. "Give me the paddle, and I'll set you ashore right here."
"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely, appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my business! I ought to ask!"
He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held it steady.
"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily. "Give me the paddle at once!"
Still he made no motion to obey.
"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,—that it will take till dark to work back against the current to where I met you,—that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the night—"
"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night. I'm going to the sea—to my uncle at Stratford! I just don't want you to interfere. Let me put you ashore at once!"
Robert was struck dumb with amazement. To the sea! This small girl, all alone! And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the river. It was superb pluck,—but it was wild, impossible folly. He did not know what to do. He turned the canoe toward shore, and presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.
Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark. She had not considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark. She made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise her as to where she could stay for the night.
"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.