"I must tell some one. If I am mad, don't lock me up. Take care of me, won't you?" Would I not? "Understand," she went on, "it was not a dream. I was wide awake, thinking of you. The Waits had not long gone, and I--I was looking at your likeness. I was not asleep." I shivered as I held her fast. "As Heaven sees us, I did not dream it. I heard a mass sung, and, Jasper, it was a mass for the dead. I followed the office. You are not a Catholic, but I thought--I feared--oh, I don't know what I thought. I am thankful there is nothing wrong with you." I felt a sudden certainty, and complete sense of power possess me. Now, in this her moment of weakness, while she was so completely under the influence of a strong emotion, I could and would save her from Benoliel, and myself from life-long pain. "Kate," I said, "I believe it is a warning. You shall not marry this man. You shall marry me, and none other." She leaned her head against my shoulder; she seemed to have forgotten her father and all the reasons for her marriage with Benoliel. "You don't think I'm mad? No? Then take care of me; take me away; I feel safe with you." Thus all obstacles vanished in less time than the length of a lover's kiss. I dared not stop to consider the coincidence of supernatural warning--nor what it might mean. Face to face with crowned hope, I am proud to remember that common sense held her own. The room in which we were had a French window. I fetched her garden hat and a shawl from the hall, and we went out through the still, white garden. We did not meet a soul. When we reached my father's garden I took her in by the back way, to the summer-house, and left her, though I was half afraid to leave her, while I went into the house. I snatched my violin and cheque book, took all my spare money, scrawled a line to my father and rejoined her. Still no one had seen us. We walked to a station five miles away; and by the time Benoliel would reach the church, I was leaving Doctors' Commons with a special licence in my pocket. Two hours later Kate was my wife, and we were quietly and prosaically eating our wedding-breakfast in the dining-room of the Grand Hotel. "And where shall we go?" I said. "I don't know," she answered, smiling; "you have not much money, have you?" "Oh dear me, yes. I'm not rich, but I'm not absolutely a church mouse." "Could we go to Devonshire?" she asked, twisting her new ring round and round. "Devonshire! Why, that is where----" "Yes, I know: Benoliel arranged to go there. Jasper, I am afraid of Benoliel." "Then why----" "Foolish person," she answered. "Do you think that Benoliel will be likely to go to Devonshire _now_?"