“You shall not go without me,” returned Paula with steady decision. “If the danger is what I fear, no one else can save him. I must go,” she added, with passionate importunity as she saw him still looking doubtful. “Darkness and peril are nothing to me in comparison with his safety. He holds my life in his hand,” she softly whispered, “and what will not one do for his life!” Then quickly, “If you go without me I shall follow with Aunt Belinda. Nothing shall keep me in the house tonight.”
He felt the uselessness of further objection, yet he ventured to say, “The place where he has gone is one of the worst in the city; a spot which men hesitate to enter after dark. You don’t know what you ask in begging me to take you there.”
“I do, I realize everything.”
With a sudden awe of the great love which he thus beheld embodied before him, Bertram bowed his head and moved towards the door. “I may consider it wise to obtain the guidance of a policeman through the quarter into which we are about to venture. Will you object to that?”
“No,” was her quick reply, “I object to nothing but delay.”
And with a last look about the room, as if some sensation of farewell were stirring in her breast, she laid her hand on Bertram’s arm, and together they hurried away into the night.