The conservatory was in semi-darkness.  She expected to see no one; looked for no one.  A moment she paused by the door that led into the garden, and in that pause she heard a slight sound.  It might have been anything.  It probably was a creak from one of the wicker chairs that stood in a corner.  Whatever its origin, it startled her to greater haste.  She fumbled at the door and pulled it open.

A gust of wind and rain blew in upon her, but she was scarcely aware of it.  In another moment she had softly closed the door again and was scudding across the terrace to the steps that led towards the river path.

As she reached it a light shone out in front of her, wavered, and was gone.

“This way to freedom, lady mine,” said Brandon’s voice close to her, and she heard in it the laugh he did not utter.  “Mind you don’t tumble in.”

His hand touched her arm, closed upon it, drew her to his side.  In another instant it encircled her, but she pushed him vehemently away.

“Let us go!” she said feverishly.  “Let us go!”

“Come along then,” he said gaily.  “The boat is just here.  You’ll have to hold the lantern.  Mind how you get on board.”

As he pushed out from the bank, he told her something of his arrangements.

“There’s a motor waiting—­not the one Polly usually hires, but it’s quite a decent little car.  By the way, she has gone straight up to Town from Wynhampton; said we should do our eloping best alone.  We shan’t be quite alone, though, for Fricker is going to drive us.  But he’s a negligible quantity, eh?  His only virtue is that he isn’t afraid of driving in the dark.”

“You will take me to Mrs. Lockyard?” said Doris quickly.

“Of course.  She is at her flat, she and Mrs. Fricker.  We shall be there soon after midnight, all being well.  Confound this stream!  It swirls like a mill-race.”

He fell silent, and devoted all his attention to reaching the farther bank.

Doris sat with the lantern in her hands, striving desperately to control her nervous excitement.  Her absence could not have been discovered yet, she was sure, but she was in a fever of anxiety notwithstanding.  She would not feel safe until she was actually on the road.

The boat bumped at last against the bank, and she drew a breath of relief.  The journey had seemed interminable.

Suddenly through the windy darkness there came to them the hoot of a motor-horn.

“That’s all right,” said Brandon cheerily.  “That’s Fricker, wanting to know if all’s well.”

He hurried her over the wet grass, skirted the house by a side-path that ran between dripping laurels, and brought her out finally into the little front garden.

A glare of acetylene lamps met them abruptly as they emerged, dazzling them for the moment.  The buzz of a motor engine also greeted them, and a smell of petrol hung in the wet air.