“Where are you?”

“I’m here,” said Ruth, very plaintively.  “I’m on a table.  It was the only thing they had put into the van before they went off to have their supper or something.  Furniture removers are always like that.  Haven’t you got a match?”

“I’ve got scores of matches,” said Denry.  “But what good do you suppose they’ll be now, all soaked through?”

A short silence.  He noticed that she had offered no explanation of her conduct towards himself.  She seemed to take it for granted that he would understand.

“I’m frightfully bumped, and I believe my nose is bleeding,” said Ruth, still more plaintively.  “It’s a good thing there was a lot of straw and sacks here.”

Then, after much groping, his hand touched her wet dress.

“You know you’re a very naughty girl,” he said.

He heard a sob, a wild sob.  The proud, independent creature had broken down under the stress of events.  He climbed out of the water on to the part of the table which she was not occupying.  And the van was as black as Erebus.

Gradually, out of the welter of sobs, came faint articulations, and little by little he learnt the entire story of her difficulties, her misfortunes, her struggles, and her defeats.  He listened to a frank confession of guilt.  But what could she do?  She had meant well.  But what could she do?  She had been driven into a corner.  And she had her father to think of!  Honestly, on the previous day, she had intended to pay the rent, or part of it.  But there had been a disappointment!  And she had been so unwell.  In short...

The van gave a lurch.  She clutched at him and he at her.  The van was settling down for a comfortable night in the mud.

(Queer that it had not occurred to him before, but at the first visit she had postponed paying him on the plea that the bank was closed, while at the second visit she had stated that the actual cash had been slowly accumulating in her desk!  And the discrepancy had not struck him.  Such is the influence of a teagown.  However, he forgave her, in consideration of her immense audacity.)

“What can we do?” she almost whispered.

Her confidence in him affected him.

“Wait till it gets light,” said he.

So they waited, amid the waste of waters.  In a hot July it is not unpleasant to dangle one’s feet in water during the sultry dark hours.  She told him more and more.

When the inspiring grey preliminaries of the dawn began, Denry saw that at the back of the pantechnicon the waste of waters extended for at most a yard, and that it was easy, by climbing on to the roof, to jump therefrom to the wharf.  He did so, and then fixed a plank so that Ruth could get ashore.  Relieved of their weight the table floated out after them.  Denry seized it, and set about smashing it to pieces with his feet.

“What are you doing?” she asked faintly.  She was too enfeebled to protest more vigorously.