duty imposed it on him.  Sooth to say, Weyburn knew that a spice of passion added to a bowl of reason makes a sophist’s mess; but he fancied an absolute reliance on Aminta’s dignity, and his respect for her was another barrier.  He begged the landlady’s acceptance of two shillings for her boy’s purchase of a boat, advising her to have him taught early to swim.  Both he and Aminta had a feeling that they could be helpful in some little things on the road if the chariot did not pass.

Justification began to speak loudly against the stopping of the chariot if it did pass.  The fact that sweet wishes come second, and not so loudly, assured him they were quite secondary; for the lover sunk to sophist may be self-beguiled by the arts which render him the potent beguiler.

‘We are safe here,’ he said, and thrilled her with the ‘we’ behind the curtaining leaded window-panes.

‘What is it you propose?’ Her voice was lower than she intended.  To that she ascribed his vivid flush.  It kindled the deeper of her dark hue.

He mentioned her want of luggage, and the purchase of a kit.

She said, ‘Have we the means?’

‘We can adjust the means to the ends.’

‘We must be sparing of expenses.’

‘Will you walk part of the way?’

‘I should like it.’

‘We shall be longer on the journey.’

‘We shall not find it tiresome, I hope.’

‘We can say so, if we do.’

‘We are not strangers.’

The recurrence of the ‘we’ had an effect of wedding:  it was fatalistic, it would come; but, in truth, there was pleasure in it, and the pleasure was close to consciousness of some guilt when vowing itself innocent.

And, no, they were not strangers; hardly a word could they utter without cutting memory to the quick; their present breath was out of the far past.

Love told them both that they were trembling into one another’s arms, not voluntarily, against the will with each of them; they knew it would be for life; and Aminta’s shamed reserves were matched to make an obstacle by his consideration for her good name and her station, for his own claim to honest citizenship also.

Weyburn acted on his instinct at sight of the postillion and the chariot; he flung the window wide and shouted.  Then he said, ‘It is decided,’ and he felt the rightness of the decision, like a man who has given a condemned limb to the surgeon.

Aminta was passive as a water-weed in the sway of the tide.  Hearing it to be decided, she was relieved.  What her secret heart desired, she kept secret, almost a secret from herself.  He was not to leave her; so she had her permitted wish, she had her companion plus her exclamatory aunt, who was a protection, and she had learnt her need of the smallest protection.

‘I can scarcely believe I see you, my dear, dear child!’ Mrs. Pagnell cried, upon entering the small inn parlour; and so genuine was her satisfaction that for a time she paid no heed to the stuffiness of the room, the meanness of the place, the unfitness of such a hostelry to entertain ladies—­the Countess of Ormont!