"I will make sure," she said, "that you haven't a pretty girl hidden in that garret of yours, and that you don't want to run away with her instead of me?" "Jealous!" he cried, with a gratified laugh; "after telling me a dozen times lately that you hated the sight of me!" "That's a woman's privilege. If you don't understand us by this time, it is too late for you to begin to learn. Pelham, I am coming up with you." "You are determined?" "As ever a woman was in this world. If you run from me now, and enter the house without me, I'll follow you, and knock at the door, and inquire for Mr. Richard Manx; and if they ask me who I am, I'll say I am _Mrs._ Richard Manx." "I believe you would," he said, looking down into her face, and not knowing whether to feel angry or pleased. "I would, as truly as I am a woman." "There's no help for it, then," he said; "but I don't know how to get you into the house without being observed." "Nothing easier. All the time we've been talking I haven't seen half-a-dozen people. Choose a moment when nobody's about; open the door quickly, and I'll slip in like an eel. Before you shut the door, I'll be at the top of the house." "Let me warn you once more; there is danger." "All the better; there's excitement in danger." "And if I don't find what I've been hunting for these weeks past, I intend to carry out a desperate design, which if successful--and it must be; I'll make it so--will place us in a position of perfect safety." "Bravo, Pelham; I never thought you had so much pluck. I will help you in everything you have to do. Now let us get into the house. I am drenched through. You can make a fire, I suppose."