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We put the ladder back into its place and stole over the turf together. But outside the garden-door Peter could stand no more of it–

“I’ve a fire-arm in my pocket,” whispered he, pulling up, “and I’m going to fire it off to relieve my feelings if you don’t explain here and now. Who, in pity’s name, is she ?”

“You mug–she’s the Original Sleeping Beauty. I’m eloping with her, and you’ve got her jewels.”

“Pardon me, Jem,” he says in his gentlemanly way, “if I don’t quite see. Are you taking her off to melt her or marry her? For how to get rid of her else—-“

The poor old creature had halted, too, three paces ahead of us, and waited while we whispered, with the moonlight, that slanted down into the lane, whitening her bare neck and flashing in her jewels.

“One moment,” I said, and stepped forward to her. “You had better take off those ornaments here, my dear, and give them to my servant to take care of. There’s a carriage waiting for us at the end of the lane, and when he has stowed them under the seat we can climb in and drive off—-“

“To the end of the world–to the very rim of it, my hero.”

She pulled the gems from her ears, hair, and bosom, and handed them to Peter, who received them with a bow. Next she searched in her pocket and drew out a tiny key. Peter unlocked the case, and having carefully stowed the diamonds inside, locked it again, handed back the key, touched his hat, and walked off towards the dog-cart.

“My dearest lady,” I began, as soon as we were alone between the high walls, “if the devotion of a life—-“

Her bare arm crept into mine. “There is but a little time left for us in which to be happy. Year after year I have marked off the almanack: day by day I have watched the dial. I saw my sisters married, and my sisters’ daughters; and still I waited. Each had a man to love her and tend her, but none had such a man as I would have chosen. There were none like you, my Prince.”

“No, I daresay not.”

“Oh, but my heart is not so old! Take my hand–it is firm and strong; touch my lips–they are burning—-“

A low whistle sounded at the top of the lane. As I took her hands I pushed her back, and turning, ran for my life. I suppose that, as I ran, I counted forty before her scream came, and then the sound of her feet pattering after me.

* * * * *

She must have run like a demon; for I was less than ten yards ahead when Peter caught my wrist and pulled me up on to the back-seat of the dog-cart. And before George could set the horse going her hand clutched at the flap on which my feet rested. It missed its grasp, and she never got near enough again. But for half a minute I looked into that horrible face following us and working with silent rage; and for half a mile at least I heard the patter of her feet in the darkness behind. Indeed, I can hear it now.