“But you are trying to hold her to it.”

“I am trying to do no such thing.  I expect Esther to dismiss him; then she will need some change of scene, and I mean to take her away.”

“To-day?” asked Strong in alarm.

“To-day or to-morrow!  Sooner or later!  We have got to be ready for it at any moment.  Now do you understand?”

“I think I am beginning to catch on,” replied Strong with a grave face.  “I wish I were out of the scrape.”

“I told you never to get into it,” rejoined his aunt.

“Poor Hazard!” muttered George, wondering whether he could do anything to ward off this last blow from his friend.

Even as he spoke, the crisis was at hand.  Mrs. Murray’s calculations were exact.  While Hazard had been arranging with Strong the plan for getting Esther away from New York, letting the engagement remain private, Esther, in a state of feverish restlessness was wearying Catherine with endless discussion of her trouble.  Even Catherine felt that, one way or the other, it was time for this thing to stop.  Esther had passed the stage of self-submission, and was in a mutinous mood.  She had given up the effort to reconcile herself with her situation, and yet could talk of nothing but Hazard, until Catherine’s good-nature was sorely tried.

“I never was such a bore till now,” said Esther at length, as though she could not at all understand it.  “I could sometimes be quite pleasant.  I used to go about the house singing and laughing.  Am I going mad?”

“Suppose we go mad together?” said Catherine.  “I will if you will.”

“Suppose we elope together!” said Esther.  “Will you run off with me?”

“Any where but to Colorado,” replied Catherine, “I have seen all I want of Colorado.”

“We will take our wedding journey together and leave our husbands behind.  Let them catch us if they can!” continued Esther, talking rapidly and feverishly.

“It would be rather fun to see Mr. Hazard driving Mr. Van Dam’s fast trotters after us,” remarked Catherine.

“When shall we go?  Can we start now?”

“Don’t you think we had better go to bed just now, and elope in the morning?” grumbled Catherine.  “They can see us better by daylight.”

“I tell you, Catherine, that I am in awful earnest.  I mean to go away somewhere, and if you won’t go with me, I shall go alone.”

“Suppose they catch us?” said Catherine.

“I don’t care!  I am hopelessly wicked!  I can’t be respectable and believe the thirty-nine articles.  I can’t go to church every Sunday or hold my tongue or pretend to be pious.”

“Then why don’t you tell him so, and let him run away?” asked Catherine.

“Because then he would think it his duty to run,” said Esther, “and I don’t want to be run away from.  Would you like to have the world think you were jilted?”

“How you do torture your poor brain!” said Catherine pityingly.  “There!  Go to bed now!  It is long past midnight.  To-morrow I will run you off, and you never shall go to church any more.”