Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/325

Rh won't know who you are. I can't leave you alone here. You know what a lot of robberies there have been in the neighbourhood lately; there may be rough characters about. Come now, let's think what's to be done. You know you can't get back unless I help you."

"I don't want you to help me; and I won't go back," she said.

But she sat down and pulled the cloak up round her face.

"Now," he said, "as I understand the case—it's this. You live rather a dull life with two tyrannical aunts—and the passion for romance . . ."

"They're not tyrannical—only one's always ill and the other's always nursing her. She makes her get up and read to her in the night. That's her light you saw—"

"Well, I pass the aunts. Anyhow, you met Harry—somehow—"

"It was at the Choral Society. And then they stopped my going—because he walked home with me one wet night."

"And you have never seen each other since?"

"Of course we have."