It had never occurred to her that he could obtain permission to go except by transport. It had not seemed possible that he would take her with him. "You should have known," said he, "that even if I had had to go by transport, you would have gone by the Empress of India. It is only sixty hours from Manila to Hongkong, and I could have joined you soon after your arrival. As it is I shall see you safely established there--I have letters to certain prominent English people--then shall go over to join the fleet when it arrives in Manila Bay." That night she wrote long and desperately to Margaret. "He swore he would follow me wherever we went until I granted him the interview. You know how he dogged me in Washington, followed me to Denver, and any moment he may address me here. F. will not let me return to you. He insists on my going to Hongkong, where he can occasionally join me. But Rollin holds those letters over me like a whip, and declares that he will give them into Frost's hands unless I see him whenever he presents himself. You made me swear to Frost I never cared a straw for my darling that was. O God, how I loved him! and if these letters ever reach the man to whom you have sold me, he would treat me as he would a dog, even if he doesn't kill me. Meg--Meg--you must help me for I live in terror." And that she lived in terror was true, some women were quick to see. Never would she go anywhere, even along the corridor, alone. If the colonel could not come to luncheon she was served in their rooms. If she had to go calling or shopping it was in a carriage and always with some army woman whom she could persuade to go with her. One day, just before their intended departure, she drove out paying parting calls. It was quite late when the carriage drew up at the Market Street entrance, the nearest to their elevator. The door boy sprang across the sidewalk to open the carriage, and as she stepped wearily out, a tall young man, erect and slender, dressed in a dark traveling suit, fairly confronted her, raised his derby, and said: "You can give me ten minutes now, Mrs. Frost. Be good enough to take my arm."