"Not now. I’m a woman. No," as he made a movement, "listen to me, Jim. While I was away from you I had no doubts about the future. I was certain that I could make you happy, that love was the principal thing in life. I’m not so sure now." She felt his grip tighten. "Why, just now you confessed——" "I confessed what _I_ felt," she interrupted. "I want you to confess. I want you to look far, far into the future ... and also to remember the past. Remember what I am—and what my brother is." Against her will her eyes were drawn towards the conservatory where the convict was hiding. An outcast, an outlaw, wearing the shameful uniform of crime. Just such a man was her brother. Wearing just the same uniform, living the same life, thinking the same thoughts. Just as desperate. Her brother: herded with other criminals in one of the great prisons of England. She had been speaking her thoughts, saying just what she felt. She knew that she was speaking them to gain time. She ought not to have wasted one moment before telling Jim of the man hiding a few yards away from them. Warders were at that moment searching outbuildings and the gardens. She was committing an unlawful act in not giving him up. She was making her lover party to her guilt. But she could not tell him. For one dreadful moment she had entered into that wretched man’s feelings. It was as if she had taken his place in the darkness out there where he was hiding. She wanted him to escape! She was incapable of reasoning that moment. Perhaps the taint of crime was in her blood. Perhaps her brother really had been guilty of robbing her lover’s father. "My dearest little one, you needn’t trouble about my future. I shall really only begin to live when you’re my wife. I can’t lose my job—if I do I can find another. And your love will make me twice as keen on my work, for you will share in it. We have each got our job to do, and we shall do it better for being together. That’s all about it." She heard his voice, as from a distance off. As he finished speaking she heard footsteps in the hall—the opening of the front door. Some one knocked at the drawing-room door. It opened, and the servant admitted the chief warder. "We’ve searched carefully, sir," he said to Jim, who put Marjorie from him and stood in front of her. "And some of my men have been right through the gardens and shrubberies, but they ain’t hiding anywhere here. No doubt you’ll see that your men-servants keep a sharp look-out. One man’s badly hit—but he was a sharpish one, he was. I’m afraid there ain’t much chance of getting them to-night, but we shall have them as soon as day breaks." He saluted. "Good-night, sir. Good-night, ma’am." The drawing-room door closed, and Marjorie listened to the footsteps crossing the hall. "We shall get them as soon as day breaks." Automatically she repeated the words the warder had spoken.