"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear it." "They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length. "It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice. I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung herself lightly to the ground. "Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire. "Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us. I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so much given. A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her further.