Instead of answering her directly, he said: "You would love the life in the caravan. Think of the camp--making a fire of sticks and cooking your supper under the stars, and the great moonlit nights, and sleeping in pine woods and waking in the dawn and curling yourself up in your blanket and going to sleep again till I shouted out that the fire was alight and breakfast nearly ready."
"I wish I could come with you without having to be married."
"Come, then," he said. "Come on any terms. I'll take you as a sister if I'm not to take you as a wife."
"Do you mean it? Really?" she said. "Oh, why shouldn't I? I believe you would take me--and I should be perfectly free then. I've got a little money of my own that my godmother left me. I was twenty-one the other day. I don't get it, of course. My father says it costs that to keep me. But if I were to run away he would have to give it to me, wouldn't he? And then I could pay you back what you spent on me. Oh, I wish I could. Will you really take me?"
But he had had time to think. "No," he said, "on reflection, I don't think I will."
But she did not hear him, for as he spoke she spoke, too. "Hush!" she said. "Look -- look there."
Across the park, near the house, lights were moving.
"They're looking for me," she gasped. "They've found out that I'm away. Oh, what shall I do? Aunt Loo will never be decent to me again. What _shall_ I do?"
"Come with me," he said, strongly. "I'll take care of you. Come."
He took her hand. "I swear by God," he said, "that everything shall be as you choose. Only come now--come away from these people. You're twenty-one. You're your own mistress. Let me help you to get free from all this stuffy, stupid tyranny."
"You won't make me marry you?" she asked.
"I can't make you do anything," he said. "But if you're coming, it must be now."
"Come, then," she said, making for the ladder.
HE had brought a ball of string in his pocket, this time, and he was glad to know he could lower the ladder by it--for the thud of a falling ladder would sound far in the night stillness. From the top of the wall he held the ladder while she mounted.
"Sit here a moment," he said, "while I get rid of the ladder." He lowered it gently, drew the string up, leaped to the ground outside the wall, and held up his hands to her.