“He had not seen you since he was at school, and yet he felt he knew you well enough to walk in on you!”

“Yes, he just walked in, and then I would not let him go.”

“Men are so queer!” she exclaimed with a little laugh that had a spice of admiration in it, under which Geoffrey writhed.  He was sailing under such false colours as her brother’s benefactor.

“We ought to be starting,” he said.

She looked round the room.  “I hate to leave all these nice things,” she said.  “Billy is so fond of them.  There is some wine that some one gave him that he says is really priceless.”

“Leave it,” said Geoffrey shortly.

“One would think you were a teetotaller from that tone.  I wonder if I could not take one bottle as a surprise to Billy.  He would like to contribute something to your hospitality, I am sure.  Besides, if I leave it, it may be stolen.”

“Yes, it may be stolen.”  He looked down into her face.

“Then—­”

“I ask you as a favour to leave it behind.”

Nothing could have been more charming than her manner of yielding, sweet and quick like a caress.  It made him feel how pitiful sordid it all was.

They started immediately, started with a certain gaiety.  Geoffrey chose to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and that it was his part to smooth her way.  The bond of difficulties to overcome united them.  They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing interest.  They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—­of that and of each other.  As far as they could see were snow and black trunks of trees.  They scarcely remembered that any one but themselves existed.

Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty.  Her courage warmed his heart.  Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to assert her independence.  She turned to him at every point.  He guided her past the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had already made.

But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful exhilaration.  Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she did answer him spoke less spontaneously.  She asked for neither help nor encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able.  Her skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell.  Geoffrey made her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she stopped of herself.

“Have we done half yet?” she asked.

“Just about,” he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her.  But he saw at once that he had failed,—­that she had had a hope that they were nearer their destination—­that she began to doubt her own powers.  Presently she moved forward again in silence.

He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she had, she would use to the end.  No hysterical despair would exhaust her beforehand.  She would not fail through lack of determination.  Whether or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes, and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of the snow.