"Don't make so much noise," he begged. She stopped and turned on him.
"I can go out if I like," she said calmly. "You think I am a slave here?"
"Oh, no, no. You don't understand...." he began.
"I understand you think I am afraid of these people. Phtt! Where is the carriage?"
"It's only a little way. You can't get boats down at the landings. Just a little way."
"All right." She pulled the gate to and the latch clicked. And then she put her gloved hand lightly on his arm, trusting her fate to him, and they walked down the road in the darkness.
"Have you got everything?" he asked timidly.
She did not reply at once. She was looking steadily ahead, thinking in a rapt way of the future, which was full of immense possibilities, and which she was prepared to meet with a dynamic courage peculiarly her own. And at that moment, though her hand lay on the arm of this man who was to take her away, she was like a woman walking alone in the midst of perils and enemies, towards a shining destiny, her delicate body sheathed in the supple and impenetrable armour of an inherited fortitude. She smiled.
"Everything," she murmured in French. "Have I not thee?" And she added, so that his face cleared of doubt and he, too, smiled proudly: "Ah, yes. What do we need, if we have each other?" He strained her suddenly to him and she stood there looking up at him with her bright, fearless, amber eyes smiling. She said:
"The boat?"