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 is enough, perhaps. Then he came into my life, and
talked to me of art and literature, and set my brain on fire. I
wanted to come out into the world, to be a human being--not a
thing in a hutch. And he--"

"I know," said Hoopdriver.

"And now here I am--"