Yet, when he was gone, she lay back in the chair and shivered again; all the more because of the unaccustomed touch about her throat of the gold lace on a mess jacket. How red it looked against her white dress! And what a lot of little gold buttons there were at its edge: foolish, useless, little ornamental gilt buttons, round and red-gold, like-- The comparison brought back Lance's cry of welcome, and made her realize that, quite mechanically, she still held in her hand that useless, foolish, unnecessary orange! That, of course, was what had made him remember; had made him say those words which had come like the writing on the wall to remind her of her own guilt. She flung the fruit from her, hastily, into the unseen river beyond the arches. Only just in time, ere Lance reëntered, with a puzzled face. "I can't find Dering anywhere," he said vexedly. "He is not in his room. Hasn't been to bed, either; though he turned in early saying he was half asleep. I wonder what is up? Can he have heard already, do you think? Scarcely; and he would not have gone without waking me." His surprise seemed to absorb him. "Then I must tell _you_, for there is no time to be lost," interrupted Erda, impatiently. Yet, even in her strenuous desire to make him understand quickly, she did not fail to explain, breathlessly, how she came to be dressed as she was. She had been trying on her wedding dress to see if it fitted, and had gone into the garden for--for--flowers, when Am-ma and his raft had come floating down the river. And was not that all true? she asked herself passionately, as she told the tale. It was all of the truth, anyhow, that he or anyone else was ever to know. So she had come to warn them, as she was. A great joy at her courage filled Lance as he listened, for to most men the possibility of a woman acting as a man might act comes as a wonder. "It was awfully plucky of you," he began; but she cut him short with a question as to what was to be done now. "Warn Dillon, first of all," he said readily. "We have a wire laid on, you know. I only hope this infernal--I beg your pardon--dust-storm won't interfere with the connection. You had better come over with me to the office; it is just across the yard, and I don't like leaving you alone. Do you mind?" "I'll come, of course,--but I must make sure of Am-ma waiting first," she added, with a ring in her voice; the ring of a vigorous vitality which finds itself face to face with action. "He said the raft couldn't overtake us for half an hour. But he must not go, anyhow, and he will want to. I had difficulty in getting him to leave it, as it was. But I had to make him. I had to be in time!"