The two were lifted into the boat. They were shivering in the wind, but their eyes were on fire with the excitement of the last two hours.

"Don't take us to that steamer," said Lawrence to one of the men who was rowing; "put us on board something that will carry us to the land. We must be in Boston to-morrow. Must,—do you hear?"

The young man spoke imperatively. He was possessed by an imperious longing to get to a clergyman, that he and Prudence might be married directly; and they must embark on the Scythia. That was the one feasible thing to do,—the one thing now to which he would bend all his energies. He was burning to get to the shore. He thought he could almost attempt to swim there,—anything, rather than the perplexities and delays which would come if they were obliged to go on board that coastwise steamer. "I can't do it, you know. I can't do it," answered the man, "'less we happen to come upon somethin'. There's the steamer hove to 'n' waitin'. No, I don't see how it can be done."

Lawrence was fuming. How was he going to bear any delays? It was as if the very air he breathed were poisoning him until he could leave America behind him. He had a fancy that if America were only far away, there would be no clouds over his sky.

"What's that?" hurriedly asked Prudence, interrupting the man, who was again saying that "it couldn't be done, nohow."

A tug was coming puffing and panting along, a little thing, dirty and reeling in a reckless way over the water, with three men in it, all of them, by the light of their lantern, gripping pipes between their teeth.

"Hullo!" shouted Lawrence, leaning forward. "Fifty dollars if you'll take two passengers up to Boston to-night."

"Hey?"

Steam was shut off, and the two crafts came alongside each other. Lawrence repeated his offer.

"Why, there's a woman!" was the response. "We can't take no woman; no 'commydations, no nothin'." He replaced his pipe in his mouth and then said, "I don't s'pose she could stand it."

"I sha'n't mind," said Prudence, quickly. "Rodney, we'll go aboard."

As she rose, a little black shape, forlorn and draggled, came fluttering from somewhere in the rowboat and alighted on the girl's shoulder. Her first impulse was to push the crow from its resting-place, but she restrained that impulse, and the bird maintained its position when she stepped into the tug, for she assumed that the master of it would take them to Boston.

So in ten minutes from the time they had been picked up the two were steaming towards the city. One of the men had brought forward an old coat, which he offered to Lawrence, suggesting that he "wrap it around his wife."

Prudence appeared not to hear the words, but she drew the garment closely about her and tried not to shiver. Lawrence sat near her; he put his arm about her and held her to him. Often he turned and looked down at her face, upon which the lamp shone. At those moments he told himself that he could not live without her; that he had been insane to think he could do so.

The little craft rolled and spun over the bay, puffing, and reeking with odors of oil; sometimes sliding down into black water as it came upon the wash of a big vessel; but always it held on its way, and in an hour the lights of Boston began to show plainly, as the craft moved in and out among the shipping in the harbor.

"I wish that crow had not come," exclaimed Lawrence once, when a hoarse murmur from behind Prudence came to his ear.

Prudence smiled rallyingly.

"Are you going to be superstitious?" she asked.

"No; but that crow is a link with Savin Hill. I want to forget that I was ever there."

The girl made a movement nearer her lover.

"I will help you to forget," she said, with a glance, "or"—and she drew herself up slightly—"there is yet time to go back. Leander knows it was by accident we were on the Vireo. We can take a train from Boston out to Savin Hill, tell them about our accident, and all will be as before. You will return to your old life, and I,—God help me!—I return to mine, in which I must never think of you. It is not too late, Rodney. Choose."

As she spoke, Prudence held herself aloof, looking at Lawrence. The crow crept out from behind her and hopped on to her knee, cocking his sharp eye up at Lawrence and making a chuckling noise as it did so.

"I have chosen," he answered, in a whisper, "and I would not go back. Do you think I could leave you,—you? No, not though I were to go through even more dishonor to gain you."

The crow chuckled again. A dark flush rose to the young man's forehead.

"I will throw him into the sea!" he cried, in a smothered voice.

But Prudence stroked the bird's head with her finger.

"No," she said; "we will send him back to Savin Hill when it is daylight. He will go. And shall I tie a note for Aunt Tishy to his leg?"

"No," was the answer. "I don't know yet that I want to send any word. Dear, let us cast the past behind us. Don't let us refer to it. We begin to-night a new life. Oh, surely love will atone, my darling,—my darling!"

"If you are only sure you will be happy." She was gazing up at him.

"Sure!" A tender fury was in his voice. "Prudence, it is paradise to be with you."

So they sat beside each other in the dirty little tug, and murmured the extravagant words which are not half enough extravagant, because no words have ever been made which do much more than hint at any height of emotion, be it what emotion it may.

In Boston the two took a carriage at the wharf. Lawrence parted from his companion in the public parlor of a quiet hotel at the South End. He explained briefly how they came to be in such a plight, and the matron of the house furnished Prudence with some garments until her own should be dry. Once in her room, the girl called for pen and ink and paper.

"If Rodney will not write to them, I must," she thought.

Sitting at the table beneath the gas-jet, Prudence's face showed pallid and weary, but there was an invincible light in her eyes, a crimson on her lips, that spoke of something besides fatigue.

The crow was perched on the back of a chair near her. He had drawn one foot up in his feathers and closed his eyes.

Prudence held her pen in her hand and looked at Devil. Then she laughed slightly as she said, aloud, "We made an odd group, didn't we, Devil? No wonder the clerk stared. A drenched man and woman and a crow arriving at eleven o'clock at night, with no luggage.

"Will you go back to Savin Hill in the morning, Devil? As for me, I will never go back. How could I? And Rodney shall be happy. Oh, yes, he shall be happy; for I love him."

She put the pen to the paper; she wrote, "Dear Aunt Letitia," then her hand stopped. She sat looking forward; there was a beautiful light upon her face.

A clock struck somewhere in the building; it struck twelve. The girl roused herself and looked down at the paper before her.

"After all," she thought, "why should I write? How they will hate me! Let Rodney tell them what he chooses."

She walked about the room for a few moments. She tried to lie down on the couch, but she could not remain quiet. A fire of memory, and hope, and a strange, indefinite fear were in her heart. Her pulses beat so heavily it was out of the question to try to rest.

It seemed to Prudence that she recalled every word she had ever said to Carolyn Ffolliott. Plainest of all she remembered how she had promised not to try to win Rodney back to her. What a ridiculous promise! Could any one expect such a promise to be kept? Absurd!

Prudence walked about the room again. She supposed it would be morning sometime. Sometime the hour would strike when she and her lover would be on the ocean and beyond recall.

It was a strange thing that she could so clearly remember Carolyn's honest eyes when she had asked for that promise.

Prudence shook herself impatiently. Then she tried once more to write the note to her aunt. But she could not do it. She tore the paper across and flung it into the grate; after this she began to walk again. The crow got down on the floor and hopped along behind her, sometimes pecking at the carpet. She turned to him in a kind of fury. She was wishing she had the courage to wring his neck. But she would make him go back in the morning. She could not have him with her. How bright his eyes were! Now, as she gazed at him, she fancied his eyes said:

"You're a liar! You're a liar!"

Thank fortune, he could not speak. She would surely kill him if he could speak. But she had never killed anything yet, and it must be rather a dreadful thing to do. Still, of course, it could be done. Anything could be done.

When it came to be three o'clock the girl was so exhausted that she laid herself on the bed and pulled the clothes up about her. As her fingers touched her throat she shuddered, thinking of how she could stop the crow's breath. She had left the light burning, and she now lifted her head and glanced about. Yes, there was Devil on the back of a chair near the fire. She smiled.

"It is like Poe's raven," she murmured. "Perhaps he will say 'nevermore' to me."

Then she resolutely shut her eyes, and was asleep directly.

A few hours later, in the bright sunlight of a lovely September morning, Prudence scoffed at her fancies of the darkness.

She was dressed in her own clothes, and was waiting for Lawrence. She had drunk a cup of strong coffee, and had been walking in the little park near the hotel. No one was out, apparently, save servants and market-men, and then a man or woman hurrying by with a satchel to catch a train.

The crow had gone with Prudence. She had permitted him to go, hoping he would spread his wings and fly away. But no; he hopped sedately behind her, and when she turned he blinked up at her mildly. Once she took him in her hand, and flung him up in the air, for that was the way she and Leander had taught him to fly off home. Now Devil flapped his wings obstinately, then alighted on the ground near her. Two or three children stopped to gaze at him. Prudence asked a boy if he would like to have a tame crow, but he promptly answered that his cat would eat it.

Thus it happened that when the Scythia left the wharf that day, near a certain man and woman, who stood together on deck, there was a little black shape sitting on some luggage. One of the hands began to take up the bags.

"Hullo! Where sh'll I stow the bird?" he called out.

Lawrence turned, and his face darkened. But a hand was laid softly on his arm.

"Dear," said his wife's voice, "let us call the crow our mascot. Surely you can't blame him because he won't forsake us."

Then Prudence promised the man that she would pay him well if he would take care of Devil during the voyage.

She glanced laughingly at her companion.

"I couldn't give him away, he wouldn't leave us, and I can't kill him."

Lawrence's face cleared. He put his hand over the hand on his arm. "Nothing matters," he said, in an undertone, "so long as we are together."