“And even Thomas would know from your face! And how should I look coming home at this hour with you?” “You are too worldly-wise. How do you know all these things?” half-proud of her shrewdness and sense. “You’re too young to know them.” “Sometimes I feel old, so old,” she answered gravely, “as if I had lived lives and lives.” “And loved?” catching her jealously, as if they were not talking nonsense. “And loved, Ismay?” For answer her arms went round his neck in quick passion. “I never loved any one on earth till I loved you,” she whispered. “There is only you for me now, till I die. Even if you tire of me--or hate me.” She stepped away from him and into the house before he could answer, before he could even tighten his arms to hold her. He turned away for his long walk home with a strange loneliness, as if his very soul had left him when Ismay went. CHAPTER XXI. THE DOG IN THE MANGER. Could Cylmer have seen her through that night of wan fear? In and out of her bed, like a restless ghost, she who had always before slept like a baby; crouching sullenly over her fire, hardening her heart to meet what must come; till a sudden thought would strike with an unendurable pang of terror, and make her start to her feet and walk round and round her room, wild and terrible in her beauty, all her flaxen hair streaming over the face that was more white than her nightgown. “Murder will out, and by to-morrow night he may have brought it home to her! What shall I do? Oh! What shall I do?” She stopped in front of the roses her lover had given her, and with sudden frantic hands tore them to shreds; crimson petals, green leaves, fluttered over her muslin night-dress; the thorns of the stripped stalks tore her hands, wounded her bare white feet. As if the pain had brought back her senses, she gave a long sigh, and stood quite motionless; presently, she sat down very wearily on her tossed bed. “I’m behaving like a fool!” she thought. “He will be back and tell me what was found before the police act on it, or can get very far if they do. And, for all I know, it may be the greatest piece of luck we could have, and draw suspicion off on a false scent, and save us. I will get out of him all they are doing in time to run, if we must”--she winced in spite of herself--“but we won’t run while there is one chance left. I can’t, I won’t, lose him!”