I shrugged my shoulders. The position was queer. For a man and a woman in our situation there was no readymade standard of conduct. I began to feel lost in the freedom we were making for ourselves. There were no landmarks. Even now we were beyond the conventional walls of right and wrong which divide society from the outcast. We were running away to seek our happiness--and we were taking Dorrie! I began to explain hurriedly how I happened to miss the train. “Ruthita wanted to come to the station. I lost time in dissuading her. When I got away, I discovered that my watch was slow by five minutes. And then to crown all, when I could have caught the train, the man at the gate...” “It doesn’t matter,” she said generously. “How long before the next train starts?” “About half-an-hour.” “That’ll do nearly as well. My boxes have gone on, but I can claim them in London.” “We don’t want to stand in this stuffy station,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.” She began to speak, and then stopped. “What is it?” I asked. “Shan’t--shan’t we be recognized?” “Not if we go round the harbor. We shan’t be likely to meet anyone there who knows us.” It was odd, this keeping up of respectable appearances to the last. Ruthita, Grandmother Cardover, Sir Charles, my father--all the world would know to-morrow. They would spread their hands before their faces and look shocked, and peek out at us through their fingers. “No one ever thpeaks to me.” Dorrie was reproachfully calling our attention to her presence. “We’ll both thpeak to you now,” I said. “Give me your hand, Dorrie.” Leaving our baggage with a porter, we went out of the station to the harbor, which lay just across the station-yard. Vi manouvered herself to the other side of me, so that the child walked between us. The heavy autumn dusk was falling. Lanterns were being run up the masts. The town shone hospitably with street-lamps. Groping their way round the pier-head came a part of the Scotch herring fleet. We could see how their prows danced and nodded by the way the light from their lamps lengthened and shortened across the water. Soon the ripple against the piles near to where we were standing quickened with the disturbance caused by their advance. Then we heard the creaking of ropes against blocks as sails were lowered. Leaning against the wall of the quay we watched them, casting furtive glances now and then at the illumined face of the station-clock. Dorrie asked questions, to which we returned indifferent answers. It had begun to dawn on her that I was going up to London with them. She construed our secretiveness to mean that our plot was for her special benefit; people only acted like that with her when they were concealing something pleasant. Her innocent curiosity embarrassed us.