Their walk had brought them from under the trees, and the lake was just before them.

‘I will go on to the bridge,’ Emily said.  ’The boat I return by will leave shortly.’

She spoke as if expecting him to take leave of her.  Wilfrid inwardly bade himself do so.  He had seen her, had talked with her; what more for either?  Yet it was beyond his power to stand here and see her walk away from him.  Things were stirring in his heart and mind of which he refused to take cognisance; he would grant nothing more than a sense of pleasure in hearing once again a voice which had so long been buried, and there was no harm in that.  Was not his strongest feeling merely surprise at having met her thus?  Even yet he found a difficulty in realising that it was she with whom he spoke; had he closed his eyes and then looked round for her in vain it would only have appeared the natural waking from intense reverie.  Why not dream on as long as he might?

‘May I not walk as far as the bridge with you?’ he asked.  ’If I were not afraid of being tiresome I should even like to go by the boat; it would be the pleasantest way of getting back to town.’

‘Yes, it is pleasant on the river,’ Emily said rather absently.

They pursued their walk together, and conversed still much in the same way.  Wilfrid learned that her school was in Hammersmith, a large day-school for girls; he led her to speak of the subjects she taught, and of her pupils.

‘You prefer it,’ he asked, ‘to private teaching?’

‘I think so.’

Once on the boat their talk grew less consecutive; the few words they exchanged now and then were suggested by objects or places passed.  At length even these remarks ceased, and for the last half-hour they held silence.  Other people close by were talking noisily.  Emily sat with both hands holding the book upon her lap, her eyes seldom moving from a point directly before her.  Wilfrid glanced at her frequently.  He was more observant now of the traces of bodily weakness in her; he saw how meagre she had become, how slight her whole frame was.  At moments it cost him a serious effort to refrain from leaning to her and whispering words—­he knew not what—­something kind, something that should change her fixed sadness.  Why had he forced his company upon her?  Certainly he brought her no joy, and presently he would take leave of her as any slight acquaintance might; how otherwise?  It would have been better to part there by the lake where she offered the occasion

The steamer reached Hammersmith.  Only at this last moment he seemed to understand where he was and with whom, that Emily was sitting by him, in very deed here by his side, and directly would be gone—­he knew not whither—­scarcely to be met again.  The silence between them had come of the difficulty they both had in realising that they were together, of the dreaminess so strange an event had cast upon them.  Were they to fall apart again without a word, a sign?  A sign of what, forsooth?