Miss Fadden’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Funk. And the appearance of that gentleman gave Miss Fadden something else to worry about. She had not damned Mr. Funk on account of his merchant class. He seemed a very grand gentleman to her. She had simply disapproved of him on the grounds that he was old enough to be Alice’s grandfather.

But now she noticed there was something sneaking and furtive about the man. And, yes, she could swear he was afraid.

“Well, well, well, ladies,” began Mr. Funk, rubbing his hands together and exuding an air of false jollity, alarming to behold. “Fine weather for a little drive, heh?”

“Yes,” said Alice dreamily, while Miss Fadden peered out of the window and up at the darkening sky.

“Er…” went on Mr. Funk, clearing his throat, “since we are going to visit an old cousin of mine and a vastly respectable woman, I think we can dispense with Miss Fadden’s services for the afternoon, my dear.”

“Yes,” said Alice in that same vague way. She found that nothing during this day was real. The only thing that seemed real to her was the memory of a warm pair of lips and the thought of the night to come.

But, “No!” said Miss Fadden at the same time and with unexpected force in one usually so meek. “It is not proper. I have told you before, sir, that until you are wed it is not fitting that my lady should be alone in a closed carriage with you.”

“Oh, I say,” said Mr. Funk nervously, looking at his fiancée for assistance. But Alice had a little smile playing about her mouth and her eyes were full of dreams.

Mr. Funk swung back to Miss Fadden and encountered a look of such stabbing venom that his fat heart quailed. Let Webb and his friends cope with the woman. He most certainly was not going to.

“Very well, very well,” he said, still with that false air of jollity which made Miss Fadden look at him narrowly. The ladies were both warmly dressed and bonneted and so they allowed Mr. Funk to lead them out to his carriage. Miss Fadden paused slightly, a strange feeling of foreboding at her heart. For this was not Mr. Funk’s usual, old-fashioned but well-turned out coach, but a rather dirty box of a thing with peeling varnish on the panels and a villainous-looking coachman on the box. There were no footmen on the back-strap.

“We are to travel in that!” exclaimed Miss Fadden. “I trust we do not have far to go.”

“My… my own carriage is being repaired,” said Mr. Funk hurriedly. “I… I rented this for the occasion,”—which indeed he had. “We are only going a little way over to Surrey.”