She was within sight of the cottage, when Mrs. Wade herself appeared, coming towards her.  Lilian waved her hand, quickened her step.  They met.

“I was going for a walk in the fields,” said Mrs. Wade.  “Shall we” ——­

Lilian had turned round, and at this moment her eyes fell upon Northway, who was quite near.  A stifled cry escaped her, and she grasped at her friend’s arm.

“What is it, dear?”

Mrs. Wade looked at her with alarm, imagining an attack of illness.  But the next instant she was aware of the stranger, who stood in obvious embarrassment.  She examined him keenly, then again turned her eyes upon Lilian.

“Is this some one you know?” she asked, in a low voice.

Lilian could not reply, and reply was needless.  Northway, who had kept postponing the moment of address, now lost himself between conflicting motives.  Seeing Lilian’s consternation and her friend’s surprise, he nervously raised his hat, drew a step or two nearer, tried to smile.

“Mrs. Wade,” Lilian uttered, with desperate effort to seem self-possessed, “I wish to speak to this gentleman.  Will you—­do you mind?”

Her face was bloodless and wrung with anguish.  The widow again looked at her, then said: 

“I will go in again.  If you wish to see me, I shall be there.”

And at once she turned away.

Northway came forward, a strange light in his eyes.

“I’m the last person you thought of seeing, no doubt.  But we must have a talk.  I’m sorry that happened before some one else.”

“Come with me out of the road.  There’s a field-path just here.”

They crossed the stile, and walked a short distance in the direction of Bale Water.  Then Lilian stopped.

“Who told you where to find me?”

Already Northway had decided upon his course of action.  Whilst he followed Lilian, watching her every movement, the old amorous feeling had gradually taken strong hold upon him.  He no longer thought of revenge.  His one desire was to claim this beautiful girl as his wife.  In doing so, it seemed to him, he took an unassailable position, put himself altogether in the right Marks’s plot did not concern him; he threw it aside, and followed the guidance of his own discretion.

“I have found you,” he said, fingering his throat nervously, “by mere chance.  I came here in search of employment—­something in a newspaper.  And I happened to see you in the streets.  I asked who you were.  Then, this morning, I watched you and followed you.”

“What do you want?”

“That’s a strange question, I think.”

“You know there can’t be anything between us.”

“I don’t see that.”

He breathed hard; his eyes never moved from her face.  Lilian, nerved by despair, spoke in almost a steady voice; but the landscape around her was veiled in mist; she saw only the visage which her memory had identified with repugnance and dread.