The worst of the storm was over, but as far as I was concerned it might just as well have been pouring. When Roger got his matches and tried to light one it only made a sick streak of phosphorescence on the side of the box. To make things worse, Roger turned round, and where the road crossed the brow of the hill behind us there was the glow of automobile lamps. He swore under his breath. "They're coming, Clara," he said. "That fool of a maid didn't wait until midnight." The thought of being found like that, waist-deep in water, drove me to frenzy. I knew how they'd laugh, how they'd keep on laughing for years. They'd call us the Water Babies probably, or something equally hateful. I just couldn't stand the thought. I got up. "Let them think we're drowned--anything," I said desperately. "I will not be found like this." Roger looked about like a hunted animal. "There's--there's a house near here on the hill," he said. Afterward I remembered how he hesitated over it. "We could get up there, I'm pretty sure." He looked back. "They seem to have stopped," he said. "Perhaps the other bridge has gone." He lifted me out and set me on the bank. He was not particularly gentle about it, and I was all he could carry. That's one thing about Bill--he's as strong as an ox and as gentle as a young gazelle. Well, we scurried up the bank, the water pouring off us, and I lost a shoe. Roger wouldn't wait until I found it, but dragged me along, panting. Suddenly I knew that I hated him with a deadly hatred. The thought of how nearly I had married him made me shiver. "I wish you'd let go of me," I said. "Why? You can't climb alone in the silly clothes you wear." "Perhaps not, but I don't like you to touch me." "Oh, if you feel like that----" He let me go, and I almost fell. "You know, Clara, I am trying hard to restrain myself, but--this is all your doing." "I suppose I broke the bridge down," I said bitterly, "and brought on the rain, and all the rest of it." "Now I recognise the Clara I used to know," he had the audacity to say, "always begging the question and shifting the responsibility. For heaven's sake don't stop to quarrel! They've probably found the car by this time." We got to the house and I fell exhausted on the steps. To my surprise Roger got out a bunch of keys and fitted one to the lock. "I know these people," he said. "I--I sometimes come out in the fall for a bit of shooting. Place is closed now." The interior looked dark and smelled musty. I didn't want to go in, but it was raining again and there was nothing else to do. "Better overcome your repugnance and give me your hand," he said. "If we turn on a light they'll spot us." Oh, it is all very well to say, looking back, that we should have sat in the car until we were found, and have carried it all off as a part of the joke. I couldn't, that's flat. I couldn't have laughed if I'd been paid to.