Before she could speak another word the carriage door was violently slammed to, and the guard’s sharp shrill whistle heralded the departure of the train.  With a cry, Vera sprang towards the door; before she could reach it, Maurice, who had perceived instantly what had happened, had let down the window and was shouting to the porter.  It was too late.  The train was off.

Vera sank back hopelessly upon the seat; and Maurice, according to the manners and customs of infuriated Britons, gave utterance to a very laconic word of bad import below his breath.

“I wouldn’t have had this happen for ten thousand pounds!” he said, after a minute, looking at her in blank despair.

Vera was taking off her veil mechanically; when he could see her face, he perceived that she was very white.

“Never mind,” she said, with a faint smile; “there is no real harm done.  It is unfortunate, that is all.  The train stops at Tripton.  I can get out there and walk home.”

“Five miles! and it is I who have got you into this scrape!  What a confounded fool I was to make you get into the carriage!  I ought to have remembered how late it was.  How are you to walk all that way?”

“Pray don’t reproach yourself, Maurice; I shall not mind the walk a bit.  I shall have to confess my escapade to Marion, and tell her why I am late for breakfast—­that is all; as it is, I can, at all events, finish what I wanted to say to you.”

And then she was silent, looking away from him out of the further window.  The train, gradually accelerating its pace, sped quickly on through the fog-blotted landscape.  Hills, villages, church spires, all that made the country familiar, were hidden in the mist; only here and there, in the nearer hedge-rows, an occasional tree stood out bleak and black against the white veil beyond like a sentinel alone on a limitless plain.  Absolute silence—­only the train rushing on faster and faster through the white, wet world without.

Then, at last, it was Maurice, not Vera, that spoke.

“I blame myself bitterly for this, Vera,” he said in a low, pained voice.  “Had it not been for my foolish, unthinking words to you yesterday, you would not have been tempted to do this rash act of kindness.  I spoke to you in a way that I had no right to speak, believing that my words would make no impression upon you beyond the fact of showing you that it was impossible for me to stay for your wedding.  I never dreamt that your kindly interest in me would lead you to waste another thought upon me.  I did not know how good and pitying your nature is, nor give you credit for so much generosity.”

She turned round to him sharply and suddenly.  “What are you saying?” she cried, with a harsh pain in her voice.  “What words are you using to me? Kindness, pity, generosity!—­have they any place here between you and me?”

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, only their eyes met, and the secret that was hidden in their souls lay suddenly revealed to each of them.