I am sorry to have to admit that the suggestion of getting out at Providence startled me. I had been so stupid as not to think of it, even when I had made the remark that we had not as yet passed that town. All I had foreseen was the struggle at the end of the journey, when Larry Strangways and I should have to fight for this woman with the powers of darkness, as in medieval legends angels and devils fought over a contested soul. I took up the idea with an enthusiasm I tried to conceal beneath a smile of engaging sweetness. "They may know that you've gone away; but they can also know that you've gone away with me." "With you? You're going to Boston." "I could wait till to-morrow. If you wanted to get off at Providence I could do it, too." "But I don't want to. I couldn't let him expect to find me here--and then discover that I wasn't." "He would be disappointed at that, of course," I reasoned, "but he wouldn't take it as the end of all things. If you got off at Providence there would be nothing irrevocable in that step, whereas there would be in your going on. You could go away with him later, if you found you had to do it; but if you continue to-night you can never come back again. Don't you see? Isn't it worth turning over in your mind a second time--especially as I'm here to help you? If you're meant to be a Madeline Pyne or an Anna Karénina, you'll get another opportunity." "Oh no, I sha'n't," she sobbed. "If I don't go on to-night, he'll never ask me again." "He may never ask you again in this way; but isn't it possible that there may eventually be other ways? Don't make me put that into plainer words. Just wait. Let life take charge of it." I seized both her hands. "Darling Mrs. Brokenshire, you don't know yourself. You're too fine to be ruined; you're too exquisite to be just thrown away. Even the hungry, passionate love of the man in the smoking-car must see that and know it. If he comes back here and finds you gone--or imagines that you never came at all--he'll only honor and love you the more, and go on wanting you still. Come with me. Let us go. We can't be far from Providence now. I can take care of you. I know just what we ought to do. I didn't come here to sit beside you of my own free will; but since I am here doesn't it seem to you as if--as if I had been sent?" As she was sobbing too unrestrainedly to say anything in words, I took the law into my own hands. The porter had already begun dusting the dirt from the passengers who were to descend at Providence on to those who were going to Boston. Making my way up to him, I had the inspiration to say: "The old lady I'm with isn't quite so well, and we're going to stop here for the night." He grinned, with a fine show of big white teeth. "All right, lady; I'll take care of you. Cranky old bunch, ain't she? Handle a good many like that between Boston and Ne' Yawk."