"The little bird must fly, and its mate must fly with it. There are too few hours before daylight and we must not lose a single one. But are you sure that you are quite ready? Is your mind made up? Will you go with me trustfully? Will you accept whatever the future has in store?" She took him in her strong young arms, printed her first kiss upon his lips, and said: "I will go with you to the ends of the earth! I will go with you through water and through fire! The future cannot bring me anything from which I shall shrink, if it lets us meet it hand in hand!" Silently and swiftly they gathered together the few necessities of a sudden journey, stole out of the quiet building and hurried away to a livery stable. In a few moments they were rattling down the rough cobble-stone pavement to the river. The ferryman, who had been retained for this very purpose, pretended to be asleep. They aroused him, drove onto the platform of his primitive craft and floated out upon the stream. As the boat swung clear of the shore they heard music issuing from the cabin windows of a steamer under whose stern they were passing. It was the "Mary Ann." They listened. The music ceased for a moment and a deep voice called out "B-b-bravo! Another song!" They recognized it instantly, and Pepeeta pressed close to the side of her lover. "You hear it for the last time," he whispered. "Thank God," she said. That name uttered in the darkness of the night startled him. The idea that he had cast a shuttle of crime into the great loom upon which the fabric of his life was being woven, took complete possession of his mind. With unerring prescience, he saw that it began to be entangled in the mysterious meshes. A consciousness that he was no longer the master but the victim of his destiny seized him and he shuddered. Pepeeta perceived the shudder through the arm which embraced her. "You are cold, my love," she said. "My joy has made me tremble," he replied. She pressed the hand which was holding hers and looked up into his face with ineffable love. The swift current seized the boat, twisting it hither and thither till it seemed to the now trembling fugitive a symbol of the stream of tendencies upon which he had launched the frail bark containing their united lives. "I wonder if I am strong enough to stem it?" he asked himself.