"And then he asked her if she were 'game for a bolt?"
"She did not understand him; but when he next spoke plainly, and inquired if she would run away with him and be married, she answered promptly that she would.
"He told her to get ready quickly, and to dress warmly, for the night was damp and cold, and to tie up a little bundle of things that she might need on the journey; but not to take much, because he had plenty of money, and could buy her all she needed.
"'Much;' Poor little thing, she had not much to take! She put on her best dress--a well-worn blue serge--a coarse, black cloth walking jacket, and a little straw hat with a faded blue ribbon. She had no gloves. She tied up a hair brush, worn nearly to the wood, a tooth brush not much better, the half of a broken dressing comb, and one clean linen collar, in a small pocket handkerchief, and she was all ready for her wedding trip.
"He told her to bolt her door before she came out, because that would take the ogres some little while to force it open, and would give the fugitives a better start.
"Ann did everything her boy lover directed, and finally stepped out of the window on to the roof below, and joined him. He let down the window, and closed the shutters with a spring that securely fastened them.
"That, he told her, would certainly give them a longer start, for it would take an hour at least to force the room open and discover her flight.
"She had forgotten all about the parting note of malediction which she had left behind her on the stand, as she stepped along the lane leading to the highway.
"He asked her to take his arm, and when they reached the public road, he inquired if she were game for a ten mile walk.
"She told him that she could walk to the end of the world with him, because she was so happy to be beside the only one on earth who had ever been kind to her--since her father's death.
"Then he explained the steps that he had taken, and must still take, to elude pursuit; how that he had gone to the railway station and bought a first class ticket for the four o'clock express to London, and afterward, when the train came up, he had mingled with the crowd getting off and getting on, and so eluded observation, and had slipped away and hidden himself in the thicket until dark, so as to make every one concerned believe that he had gone off by the mail train alone to London.
