She was shivering from head to foot. Her eyes were distended, her face white; I was fearful of I knew not what. Hailing a passing hansom, I had practically to lift her into it. She seemed to have all at once grown helpless. I told the driver to take us to Victoria--fast. An idea had occurred to me. The Ostend boat train left at half-past five. We might be able to catch it. Anything was preferable to inaction. The sooner we were out of London the better it would be. She was still trembling as she sat beside me in the cab. I tried to calm her. “You are too sensitive. It was only a trick of your imagination, you let it run away with you. If you are not careful you will be ill; then what shall I do?” She came closer to me still. “Save me! You will save me!” It was like the pleading of a frightened child. The contact of her person with mine set me shivering, too; it was as if I were thrilling with a delicious pain. “At present there is nothing from which to save you. When there is, I’ll not be wanting, rest assured.” “Put your arm about me.” I did as I was told, wondering if she were mad, or I. “How is it that I only feel safe when I am close to you--and the closer the safer?” “It is because God is very good to me.” “To you? God is good to you?” “Has He not put it into your heart to feel safe with me?” “You think so? Take your arm away. I am better now. I am not--not such a coward. You think it is God who has put it into my heart to feel safe with you. I wonder!” “I am sure.” “You are a strange man.” “I pray that you may not always think so.” “Have you--have you had many friends among women?” “Never one; unless I may count you as a friend.” “Oh yes, you may count me--as a friend. Do you care for women?” “I did not know it until now.” She laughed. I was glad to have lightened her mood. “You are odd--you are really very quaint.” She leaned out of the cab. “Where are we? I have not the least idea where you are taking me.” “To Victoria; to try to catch the Ostend boat.” “Ostend? Are we going there?” “I think we’d better.” “But---- Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I really was not anticipating a trip to Ostend quite so soon. Just now you talked of Paris.” “And it may be Paris after all; only the Ostend boat goes first.” “And time’s the essence of the matter. I see. Between this and the departure of the Paris train I run a risk of being arrested. That is to bring it very close.” I was still, hardly knowing what to say. What she said was true; this was a case in which, at any moment, truth might decline to be trifled with. She, too, was silent. Leaning back in her own corner, as far as possible from me, she looked forward into the fog. Starting for the other end of the world at a moment’s notice was a commonplace event with me. An unexpected run to Brussels was to her a thing so strange as to be almost awful. I looked at my watch; called to the driver. “Can’t you press on a little faster? We shall lose our train.”