She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward.

There was no resisting that steady pressure.

She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at last and would fain have stopped to rest after the ordeal, she found that she must needs go on, for he would not suffer any pause.
He had followed her so closely that his hold upon her had never varied.
There seemed to her to be something electric in the very touch of his fingers.

She was fully conscious of the fact that she moved by a strength outside her own.
"Go on!" he said.

"Go on! There's Columbus waiting for you.