"Come with me," he said, strongly. "I'll take care of you. Come." He took her hand. "I swear by God," he said, "that everything shall be as you choose. Only come now--come away from these people. You're twenty-one. You're your own mistress. Let me help you to get free from all this stuffy, stupid tyranny." "You won't make me marry you?" she asked. "I can't make you do anything," he said. "But if you're coming, it must be now." "Come, then," she said, making for the ladder. VI CROW'S NEST HE had brought a ball of string in his pocket, this time, and he was glad to know he could lower the ladder by it--for the thud of a falling ladder would sound far in the night stillness. From the top of the wall he held the ladder while she mounted. "Sit here a moment," he said, "while I get rid of the ladder." He lowered it gently, drew the string up, leaped to the ground outside the wall, and held up his hands to her. "Jump," he whispered. "I'll catch you." But even as he spoke she had turned and was hanging by her hands. He let her do it her own way. She dropped expertly, landing with a little rebound. He was glad he had not tried to catch her. It would have been a poor beginning to their comradeship if he had, at the very outset, shown doubts of her competence to do anything she set out to do. They stood under the wall very near together. "What are you going to do?" she said. "I must get a car and take you away. Are you afraid to be left alone for a couple of hours?" "I--I don't think so," she said. "But where? Did you notice the lights as you got over the wall?" "Yes; they were still near the house." The two were walking side by side along the road now. "If you were any ordinary girl I should be afraid to leave you to think things over--for fear you should think you'd been rash or silly or something--and worry yourself about all sorts of nonsense, and perhaps end in bolting back to your hutch before I could come back to you. But since it's you--let's cut across the downs here--we'll keep close to the edge of the wood." Their feet now trod the soft grass. "How sensible of you to wear a dark cloak," he said. "Yes," she said, "a really romantic young lady in distress would have come in white muslin and blue ribbons, wouldn't she?" He glowed to the courage that let her jest at such a moment. "Where am I to wait?" she asked. "There's an old farm-house not far away," he said. "If you don't mind waiting there. Could you?" "Who lives there?" "Nobody. I happen to have the key. I was looking at it yesterday. It's not furnished, but I noticed some straw and packing-cases. I could rig you up some sort of lounge, but don't do it if you're afraid. If you're afraid to be left to yourself we'll walk together to Eastbourne. But if we do we're much more likely to be caught." "I'm not in the least afraid. Why should I be?" she said, and they toiled up the hill among the furze bushes in the still starlight.