With much tucking and folding he contrived to wrap his habit about her slender body and to adjust the mantilla over her fragrant hair. "Now, I suppose, I'm a nun," she laughed. The speech would have stung him had he not remembered her behavior in his cell, twelve days before, and her evident persuasion that monks and nuns were only picturesque archaisms, with no serious existence outside the pages of novelists and the dreams of pious sentimentalists. But he did not give her time to expand her flippancy. "Let us go," he said. They went. For about twenty paces the paved causeway which led to the little door gave them dry foothold. Thenceforward, however, the paths to the guest-house had become rushing streams. Even without the aid of the lightning one could see gleaming water everywhere. Isabel glanced down dolefully at her feet. "We can't," she said. "We must," he insisted. "Look at my shoes," she moaned. Antonio considered again. Then he asked: "You will let me carry you?" "If we can't wait," she answered, after a long pause, "and if you're sure there's no other way ... you may carry me." He stepped down from the causeway and bent his back so that she could seat herself upon his shoulder. "You must hold fast," he said. Very shyly she slipped round his neck a soft arm which trembled. Antonio straightened himself up and plashed forward. Once or twice he came to dips in the path where the water was higher than his knees, but the young giant stamped through the whirlpools like another Saint Christopher. On they went, guided by the flickering lightning. At length they reached the main path. It was hardly ankle deep in water. He quickened his pace, until the guest-house loomed in sight. Then he gently set Isabel down on a boulder away from the drip of the trees and released her from the clumsy habit, which he folded up and laid on another great stone. "You left the door unlocked?" he whispered. "Yes." "For Heaven's sake don't speak so loud. Better still, don't speak at all. I'm going to carry you as softly as I can to the steps. Don't breathe a word on the way. And don't open the door until I am back under the trees. I shall wait to see that you are safe. Now!" "No, no, not yet," she whispered. "Yes. Now. This moment. You are mad." "I know. But, Antonio, promise. To-morrow morning. At the cascade." "I promise," he said.