Not, I'm afraid, that your giving your permission or withholding it would have made much difference in the upshot.

Timothy Proud let on, in my hearing, that he set you across the river soon after two o'clock, and that there'd been no call for the ferry since.

So I took one of my own boats and just came over to look for you--in case you might have met with some mishap or strayed among the sand-hills and couldn't find your"-- Thus far he spoke with studied calm and restraint.

But here, as though struck by a fresh and very objectionable idea, he broke out: "Nothing has happened has it?
No cowardly brute has interfered with you or upset you?
Dear God alive, don't tell me I'm too late, don't tell me that." Upon Damaris this sudden, though to her unaccountable, violence and heat acted as a cordial.

She raised her head, pushing back the damp hair from her forehead, and displaying a proud if strained and weary face.
"No," she said, "of course not.