Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/142

 "You are safe," said Mr. Hoopdriver, sweeping off his cap with an air and bowing courtly.

"Where are we?"

"Safe."

"But where?"

"Chichester Harbour." He waved his arm seaward as though it was a goal.

"Do you think they will follow us?"

"We have turned and turned again."

It seemed to Hoopdriver that he heard her sob. She stood dimly there, holding her machine, and he, holding his, could go no nearer to her to see if she sobbed for weeping or for want of breath. "What are we to do now?" her voice asked.

"Are you tired?" he asked.

"I will do what has to be done."

The two black figures in the broken light were silent for a space. "Do you know," she said, "I am not afraid of you. I am sure you are honest to me. And I do not even know your name!"

He was taken with a sudden shame of his homely patronymic. "It's an ugly name," he said. "But you are right in trusting me. I would—I would do anything for you This is nothing."

She caught at her breath. She did not care to ask why. But compared with Bechamel!—"We take each other on trust," she said. "Do you want to know—how things are with me?

"That man," she went on, after the assent of his listening silence, "promised to help and protect me. I was unhappy at home—never mind why. A stepmother—idle, unoccupied, hindered, cramped, that