It was a relief to hear his own voice in some such apparently light-hearted quip. The cab was narrow, and hung on indifferent springs, and its lurching across the roadway to avoid other vehicles often threw him against Nancy's supple body. He could never touch her without feeling the thrill of contact, and, fight as he would against it, the desire to clasp her in his arms and stifle her protests with hot kisses would come on him at such moments with an almost overwhelming ecstasy. "If I led, would you follow, Derry?" she whispered. Heaven help him, it seemed as though she was nestling close deliberately; yet he refused to believe, and strove to answer with a jest. "I have a picture of you and me striking out across the bay for Narragansett, like a pair of dolphins," he said. "I thought of you that night on the Lido," she went on, unheeding. "I imagined then that when you skipped off to Sacramento you had forgotten the little girl of the Dolores ranch. At any rate, such was my every-day common-sense sort of belief; but tucked away in some cute little nerve center of intuition was another notion, which told me that we had been driven apart by wicked and deceitful contriving. And now, thank my stars, I know that my subconscious feeling was right! Oh, Derry! How you must have despised me! What if we had not met for many a year, and you had schooled yourself into real forgetfulness, and some other girl had crept into a corner of your heart, thrusting out poor little me forever?" The gathering gloom without had now made the cab's interior so dark that she could not see the rigid lines in his face, nor could she make out by any convulsive movement that his hands were clenched, and that beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. But she knew, yes, she knew, and timid fingers caught his arm. "You are not to think me mad or cruel to speak in this way," she cooed. "I have looked into my very soul, Dear, and a great peace has come from my self-communing. You have wearied your clever brain with guesses as to my motive in meeting you tonight, and I giggled like a schoolgirl today at the thought of your absolute amazement when you read my note bidding you prepare to leave Newport. But it is all part and parcel of my plan, Derry, which rests on your reply to one small question. Do you want to go away from _me_? Are you ready to face a world in which there will be no Nancy, never, no more?" "Ah, you are trying me beyond endurance!" he almost sobbed. "But you _must_ tell me _that_, Derry. I have gone a long way daringly. It is my privilege, my right. If you love me, you must expect it of me, because, as things are, I am forced to take the first step. But a woman must be sure that she is loved, and her lover alone can still her doubts." An impulse stronger than his own strength of will brought strange, wild words to his dry lips.