’You must come with me, Julia.  I shall go mad if you don’t.  I can care for no one but you.  All my life is in you now.  You know I cannot love that girl, and we cannot continue in this wretched life.  There is no sense in it; it is a voluntary, senseless martyrdom!’

’Hubert, do not tempt me to be disloyal to my friend.  It is cruel of you, for you know I love you.  But no, nothing shall tempt me.  How can I?  We do not know what might happen.  The shock might kill her.  She might do away with herself.’

‘You must come with me,’ said Hubert, now completely lost in his passion.  ’Nothing will happen.  Girls do not do away with themselves; girls do not die of broken hearts.  Nothing happens in these days.  A few more tears will be shed, and she will soon become reconciled to what cannot be altered.  A year or so after, we will marry her to a nice young man, and she will settle down a quiet mother of children.’

‘Perhaps you are right.’

An empty fly, returning to the town, passed them.  The fly-man raised his whip.

‘Take you to the railway station in ten minutes!’

Hubert spoke quietly; nevertheless there was a strange nervousness in his eyes when he said—­

’Fate comes to help me; she offers us the means of escape.  You will not refuse, Julia?’

Her upraised face was full of doubt and pain, and she was perplexed by the fly-man’s dull eyes, his starved horse, his ramshackle vehicle, the wet road, the leaden sky.  It was one of those moments when the familiar appears strange and grotesque.  Then, gathering all her resolution, she said—­

‘No, no; it is impossible!  Come back, come back.’

He caught her arm:  quietly and firmly he led her across the road.  ’You must listen to me....  We are about to take a decisive step.  Are you sure that——­’

‘No, no, Hubert, I cannot; let us return home.’

‘I go back to Ashwood!  If I did, I should commit suicide.’

‘Don’t speak like that....  Where will you go?’

’I shall travel....  I shall visit Italy and Greece....  I shall live abroad.’

‘You are not serious?’

’Yes, I am, Julia.  That cab may not take both, but it certainly will take one of us away from Ashwood, and for ever.’

‘Take you to Southwater, sir—­take you to the station in ten minutes,’ said the fly-man, pulling in his horse.  A zig-zag fugitive thought passed:  why did the fly-man speak of taking them to the station?  How was it that he knew where they wanted to go?  They stopped and wondered.  The poor horse’s bones stood out in strange projections, the round-shouldered little fly-man sat grinning on his box, showing three long yellow fangs.  The vehicle, the horse, and the man, his arm raised in questioning gesture, appeared in strange silhouette upon the grey clouds, assuming portentous aspect in their tremulous and excited imaginations.  ’Take you to Southwater in ten minutes!’ The voice of the fly-man sounded hard, grating, and derisive in their ears.