"How can I be sure?" Patricia spoke as though thinking aloud. "They've promised me this time. I'll go away to-morrow. If my papers aren't ready I'll leave without them." "Will you give me your word?" "Upon my honor." Patricia turned for the first time and looked directly up at him. What value could she set upon the honor of one she knew not? Whatever the feminine process of examination, she seemed satisfied. "What can I do? It's almost dusk." "I was about to suggest--er--I thought perhaps you might be willing to--er--go and have a bite--to eat--in fact, dinner." Patricia stopped and looked up at him in startled abstraction. The word and its train of associated ideas evolved in significant fashion from her mental topsy-turvy. Dinner! With a strange man in a public place! The prosaic word took new and curious meanings unwritten upon the lexicon of her code. There was the tangible presentation of her sin--that she might read and run while there was yet time. How had it all happened? What had this insolent person said to make it possible for her to forget herself for so long? With no word of explanation her small feet went hurrying down the hill while his big ones strode protestingly alongside. "Well?" he said at last. But she gave him no answer and only walked the faster. "You're going?" "Home--at once." She spoke with cold incisiveness. He walked along a few moments in silence--then said assertively: "You're afraid." For reply she only shook her head. "It's true," he went on. "You're afraid. A moment ago, you were willing to forget we had just met. Now in a breath you're willing to forget that we've met at all." But she would not answer. He glanced at the poise of the haughty head just below his own. Was it mock virtue? He felt thoroughly justified in believing it so. They had reached a corner. Patricia stopped. "You'll let me go here, won't you? You'll not follow me or try to find out anything, will you? Say you won't, please, please! It has all been a dreadful mistake--how dreadful I didn't know until--until just now. I must go--alone, you understand--alone----" "But it is getting dark, you----" "No, no! It doesn't matter. I'm not afraid. How can I be--now? Please let me go--alone. Good-by!" And in a moment she had vanished in the cross street. CHAPTER VII Mortimer Crabb watched the retreating figure. "H-m," he said, "the Eternal Question--as usual--without the answer. And yet I would have sworn that that parasol in the Square----"