been devoted to covering me. Both those men were freezing there for my sake, and I was ungrateful enough to shiver.
I need not tell you that I gave them no peace until they had put their coats on again. Then we all crouched together in the bottom of the car to keep each other warm. I shrank from Kenneth a little, but not much, for it was kind of him—so kind and generous—to suffer that awful cold for me. What surprised me was that he made no opposition to my resting in Phillip's arms, and Phillip did not seem to mind his drawing close to me.
But Kenneth explained:—
"Mr. Rutley has told me you are already his wife, Minnie. Is that true?"
I confirmed it, and asked him to pardon my choosing where my heart inclined me.
"If that is so," he said, "I have little to forgive and much to be forgiven. Had I known how things stood, I loved you too well to imperil your happiness and your life, and the life of the man you prefer to me."
"But the danger is all over now," said I; "let us be good friends for the future."
"We may at least be friends," replied Kenneth; and I caught a glance of some mysterious import that passed between the men. The question it would have led me to ask was postponed by the account Phillip gave of his presence in the balloon-car—how by springing into the air as the grapnel swung past him, dragged clear by the rising balloon, he had caught the irons and then the rope, climbing up foot by foot, swinging to and fro in the darkness, up, up, until the whole length of the rope was accomplished and he reached my side. Brave, strong, dear Phillip!
And, now, once more he would have it that I must wear his coat.
"The sun's up, Minnie, and he'll soon put warmth into our bones. I'm going to have some exercise. My coat will be best over you."
Had it not been so excruciatingly cold we might have enjoyed the grandeur of our sail through the bright, clear heavens, the big brown balloon swelling broadly above us. Phillip tried to keep up our spirits by calling attention to these things, but Kenneth said little or nothing, and looked so despondent that, wishing to divert his thoughts from his disappointment concerning myself, which I supposed was his trouble, I heedlessly blurted out that I was starving, and asked him to give me some breakfast.
Then it transpired that he had thrown out of the car all the provisions with which we had been supplied for our journey.
The discovery took the smiles out of Phillip's merry face.
"You'll have to hold on a bit, little woman," said he. "When we get to a waystation or an hotel, we'll show the refreshment contractors what sort of appetites are to be found up above."
Then I asked them where we were going; whereabouts we had got to; and why we did not descend. Which elicited the fact that Kenneth had thrown away the instruments by which the aeronaut informs himself of his location and the direction of his course. For a long time Phillip playfully put me off in my petition to be restored to terra firma, but at last it came out that the valve-line being cut we could not descend, and that the balloon must speed on, mounting higher and higher, until it would probably burst in the extreme tension of the air.
"Soon after that," said Phillip, with a grim, hard laugh, "we shall be back on the earth again."
We found it difficult to enjoy the trip after this prospect was made clear. Nor did conversation flow very freely. The hours dragged slowly on, and our sufferings increased.
At last Phillip made up his mind to attempt a desperate remedy. What it was he would not tell me, but, kissing me tenderly, he made me lie down and covered my head with his coat.
Then he took off his boots, and then the car creaked and swayed, and suddenly I felt he was gone out of it. He had told me not to look out from under his coat; but how could I obey him? I did look, and I saw him climbing like a cat up the round, hard side of the balloon, clinging with hands and feet to the netting that covered it.
As he mounted, the balloon swayed over with his weight until it was right above him and he could hardly hold on to the cords with his toes and his fingers. Still he crept on, and still the great silken fabric heeled over, as if it resented his boldness and would crush him.
Once his foothold gave way, and he dropped to his full length, retaining only his hand-grip of the thin cords, which nearly cut his fingers in two under the strain of his whole weight. I thought he was gone; I thought I had lost him for ever. It seemed impossible he could keep his hold, and even if he did the weak netting must give way. It stretched down where he grasped it into a
