So on they went, the deepening dusk turned to night, and in Elizabeth's dreams it seemed that her hand was held more closely; but unless one moved it ever so little one could not be sure; and she would not move it ever so little. The damp towing-path ended in a road cobblestoned, the masts of ships, pointed roofs, twinkling lights. The eleven miles were nearly over. Elizabeth's hand moved a little, involuntarily, on his arm. To cover the movement she spoke instantly. "I am leaving Bruges to-morrow." "No; your sixth-form girl will be too tired, and besides--" "Besides?" "Oh, a thousand things! Don't leave Bruges yet; it's so 'quaint,' you know; and--and I want to introduce you to--" "I won't," said Elizabeth almost violently. "You won't?" "No; I don't want to know your wife." He stopped short in the street--not one of the "quaint" streets, but a deserted street of tall, square-shuttered, stern, dark mansions, wherein a gas-lamp or two flickered timidly. "My _wife_?" he said; "it's my _aunt_." "It said 'Mrs. Brown' in the visitors' list," faltered Elizabeth. "Brown's such an uncommon name," he said; "my aunt spells hers with an E." "Oh! with an E? Yes, of course. I spell my name with an E too, only it's at the wrong end." Elizabeth began to laugh, and the next moment to cry helplessly. "Oh, Elizabeth! and you looked in the visitors' list and--" He caught her in his arms there in the street. "No; you can't get away. I'm wiser than I was three years ago. I shall never let you go any more, my dear." The girl from the sixth looked quite resentfully at the two faces that met her at the station. It seemed hardly natural or correct for a classical mistress to look so happy. Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a goodnight word with her at the top of the stairs, by the table where the beautiful brass candlesticks lay waiting in shining rows. "Sleep well, you poor, tired little person," he said, as he lighted the candle; "such little feet, such wicked little shoes, such a long, long, long walk." "You must be tired, too," she said. "Tired? with eleven miles, and your hand against my heart for eight of them? I shall remember that walk when we're two happy old people nodding across our own hearthrug at each other." So he had felt it too; and if he had been married, how wicked it would have been! But he was not married--yet. "I am not very, very tired, really," she said. "You see, it _was_ my hand against--I mean your arm was a great help--" "It _was_ your hand," he said. "Oh, you darling!" It was her hand, too, that was kissed there, beside the candlesticks, under the very eyes of the chambermaid and two acid English tourists. UNDER THE NEW MOON