It was now that Phillip told me that he possessed an independent fortune, by virtue of which the world lay spread out before us for our choice of a home.
"Sweet as have been the hours that I have passed here—precious and hallowed as this little spot on the wide earth's surface must ever be to me," said my husband, "I want to take you away from it and show you many goodly things you have as yet hardly dreamed of. We will not abandon your dear old home, but we will find someone to take care of it for us, and see what other paradise we can discover in which to spend our life-long honeymoon."
I had never mentioned to Phillip the name of Kenneth Moore, and so he thought it a mere playful caprice that made me say:—
"Let us go, Phillip, no one knows where—not even ourselves. Let Heaven guide us in our choice of a resting-place. Let us vanish from this village as if we had never lived in it. Let us go and be forgotten."
He looked at me in astonishment, and replied in a joking way:—
"The only means I know of to carry out your wishes to the letter, would be a nocturnal departure, as I arrived—that is to say, in my balloon."
"Yes, Phillip, yes!" I exclaimed eagerly, "in your balloon, to-night, in your balloon!"
That night, in a field by the reservoir of the gas-works of Nettledene, the balloon was inflated, and the car loaded with stores for our journey to unknown lands. The great fabric swayed and struggled in the strong breeze that blew over the hills, and it was with some difficulty that Phillip and I took our seats. All was in readiness, when Phillip, searching the car with a lantern, discovered that we had not with us the bundle of rugs and wraps which I had got ready for carrying off.
"Keep her steady, boys!" he cried. "I must run back to the house." And he leapt from the car and disappeared in the darkness.