Will Law, understanding naught of this swift coil of events, and not daring to leave Lady Catharine behind him at the carriage, made down the stairway, half carrying the drooping figure which now leaned weakly upon his shoulder.
"Pull now, man! Pull as you never did before!" cried he, and the wherryman bent hard to his oars.
Yet great as was the haste of those who put forth into the foggy Thames, it was more than equalled by that of one who appeared upon the dock, even as the creak of the oars grew fainter in the gloom.

There came the rattle of wheels upon the quay, and the sound of a driver lashing his horses.

A carriage rolled up, and there sprang from the box a muffled figure which resolved itself into the very embodiment of haste.
"Hold the horses, man!" he cried to the nearest by-stander, and sprang swiftly to the head of the stairs, where a loiterer or two stood idly gazing out into the mist which overhung the water.
"Saw you aught of a man," he demanded hastily, "a man and a woman, a tall young woman--you could not mistake her?
'Twas the Polly Greenway they should have found.

Tell me, for God's sake, has any boat put out from this stair ?" "Why, sir," replied one of the wherrymen who stood near by, pipe in mouth and hand in pocket, "since you mention it, there was a boat started but this instant for midstream.

They sought McMaster's brigantine, the Polly Perkins, that lies waiting for the tide.