Chapter 5

What had passed between Smilash and Henrietta remained unknown
except to themselves. Agatha had seen Henrietta clasping his neck
in her arms, but had not waited to hear the exclamation of
"Sidney, Sidney," which followed, nor to see him press her face
to his breast in his anxiety to stifle her voice as he said, "My
darling love, don't screech I implore you. Confound it, we shall
have the whole pack here in a moment. Hush!"

"Don't leave me again, Sidney," she entreated, clinging faster to
him as his perplexed gaze, wandering towards the entrance to the
shrubbery, seemed to forsake her. A din of voices in that
direction precipitated his irresolution.

"We must run away, Hetty," he said "Hold fast about my neck, and
don't strangle me. Now then." He lifted her upon his shoulder and
ran swiftly through the grounds. When they were stopped by the
wall, he placed her atop of it, scrabbled over, and made her jump
into his arms. Then he staggered away with her across the fields,
gasping out in reply to the inarticulate remonstrances which
burst from her as he stumbled and reeled at every hillock, "Your
weight is increasing at the rate of a stone a second, my love. If
you stoop you will break my back. Oh, Lord, here's a ditch!"

"Let me down," screamed Henrietta in an ecstasy of delight and
apprehension. "You will hurt yourself, and--Oh, DO take--"

He struggled through a dry ditch as she spoke, and came out upon
a grassy place that bordered the towpath of the canal. Here, on
the bank of a hollow where the moss was dry and soft, he seated
her, threw himself prone on his elbows before her, and said,
panting:

"Nessus carrying off Dejanira was nothing to this! Whew! Well, my
darling, are you glad to see me?"

"But--"

"But me no buts, unless you wish me to vanish again and for ever.
Wretch that I am, I have longed for you unspeakably more than
once since I ran away from you. You didn't care, of course?"

"I did. I did, indeed. Why did you leave me, Sidney?"

"Lest a worse thing might befall. Come, don't let us waste in
explanations the few minutes we have left. Give me a kiss."

"Then you are going to leave me again. Oh, Sidney--"

"Never mind to-morrow, Hetty. Be like the sun and the meadow,
which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter. Why
do you stare at that cursed canal, blindly dragging its load of
filth from place to place until it pitches it into the sea--just
as a crowded street pitches its load into the cemetery? Stare at
ME, and give me a kiss."

She gave him several, and said coaxingly, with her arm still upon
his shoulder: "You only talk that way to frighten me, Sidney; I
know you do."

"You are the bright