“You are to get in, sir, and make a little journey with the madame,” said the footman.

Jack got into the coach.  Its door closed, the horses started with a jump and he was on his way whither he knew not.  Nor did he know the reason for the rapid pace at which the horses had begun to travel.

“If you do not mind, sir, we will not lift the shades,” said the veiled lady, as the coach started.  “We shall see Margaret soon, I hope.”

She had a colorless, cold voice and what was then known in London as the “patrician manner.”  Her tone and silence seemed to say:  “Please remember this is all a matter of business and not a highly agreeable business to me.”

“Where is Margaret?” he asked.

“A long way from here.  We shall meet her at The Ship and Anchor in Gravesend.  She will be making the journey by another road.”

She had answered in a voice as cold as the day and in the manner of one who had said quite enough.

“Where is Gravesend?”

“On the Thames near the sea,” she answered briskly, as if in pity of his ignorance.

He saw the plan now—­an admirable plan.  They were to meet near the port of sailing and be married and go aboard the ship and away.  It was the plan of Margaret and much better than any he could have made, for he knew little of London and its ports.

“Should I not take my baggage with me?”

“There is not time for that,” the veiled lady answered.  “We must make haste.  I have some clothes for you in a bag.”

She pointed to a leathern case under the front seat.

He sat thinking of the cleverness of Margaret as they left the edge of the city and hurried away on the east turnpike.  A mist was coming up from the sea.  The air ahead had the color of a wool stack.  They stopped at an inn to feed and water the horses and went on in a dense fog, which covered the hedge rows on either side and lay thick on the earth so that the horses seemed to be wading in it.  Their pace slowed to a walk.  From that time on, the road was like a long ford over which they proceeded with caution, the driver now and then winding a horn.

Each sat quietly in a corner of the seat with a wall of cold fog between them.  The young man liked it better than the wall of mystery through which he had been able to see the silent, veiled form beside him.

“Do you have much weather like this?” he ventured to inquire by and by.

This answer came out of the bank of fog:  “Yes,” as if she would have him understand that she was not being paid for conversation.

From that time forward they rode in a silence broken only by the creaking of the coach and the sound of the horses’ hoofs.  Darkness had fallen when they reached the little city of Gravesend.  The Ship and Anchor stood by the water’s edge.

“You will please wait here,” said the stern lady in a milder voice than she had used before, as the coach drew up at the inn door, “I shall see if she has come.”