Those minutes had grown into a quarter of an hour, and then Margaret had come back looking decidedly guilty, but rather inclined to a tearful mirth.

“You needn’t speak,” said Tita, with a pretence at contempt.  “You didn’t say ‘No’ on Sunday, and you have said ‘Yes’ to-day.  It is quite simple.”

“Well, it is all your fault,” Margaret had returned, sinking into a chair, and beginning to laugh rather shamefacedly.  “If you had stayed with me it never would have happened.  But you have shown me how delightful companionship is, and having shown it, you basely desert me.  And now—­I feel so lonely that——­”

“That?”

“I have broken through all my vows, and said——­”

“Yes?”

“Yes!”

“You must both come down and stay with me as soon as ever you can,” said Tita, giving her a tender hug.

* * * * * *

The long sweet summer evening is growing into night as the train draws up at the old station that Tita knows so well.  She looks out of the window, her heart in her eyes, taking in all the old signs—­the guard fussy as ever—­Evans the porter (she nods to him through eyes filled with tears)—­the glimpse of the church spire over the top of the station-house—­the little damp patch in the roof of the booking-office.

She almost starts, so deep is her reverie, as Rylton lays a hand upon her shoulder.

“Come,” says he, smiling.

“Why——­” begins she, surprised.  She sees he has her travelling-bag in his hand, and that he wants to pass her to open the window.

“This is our station,” says he.

“This?”

“Yes.  I think I told you the new place I had bought was in this county.”

“Yes.  I know, but so near——­”

Rylton has opened the door, and is calling to a porter.  Evan comes up.

“Welcome home, my lady,” says he, touching his cap to Tita, who gives him a little nod in return, whilst feeling that her heart is breaking.

“Home!” She feels as if she hates poor Evans, and yet of course he had meant nothing.  No doubt he thought she was coming back to Oakdean.  Dear, dear Oakdean, now lost to her for ever!

A carriage is waiting for them, and Rylton, putting her into it, goes away to see to their luggage.  Tita, sitting drearily within, her heart sad with recollections of the past, is suddenly struck by a sound that comes to her through the shut windows of the carriage.  She opens the one nearest to her and listens.

It is only a poor vagrant on the pavement without, singing for a penny or two.  But the song goes to her very heart: 

    “It’s hame, and its hame—­hame fain wad I be,
    O! hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree.”

A sob rises in her throat.  So near to her own dear home, and yet so far.  She finds her purse, and hastily flings half a crown to the poor wretch outside, who never guesses why she got so large a dole.