’No; it matters very little; I suppose there is a mail some time to-night?  I will go back to Dunfield and take my chance.’

‘How tired you will be!  Two such journeys in one day.’

’And a draught of the water of life between them.  But even now there is something more I ask for.’

‘Something more?’

‘One touch of the lips that speak so nobly.’

It was only then that her eyes gleamed for a moment through moisture.  But she strengthened herself to face the parting. in spite of a heaviness at the heart like that which she had felt on leaving The Firs.  She meant at first to go no further than the stile into the lane, and there Wilfrid held out his hand.  She used it to aid herself in stepping over.

‘I must go as far as Pendal station,’ she said.  ’Then you can look at the time-table, and tell me what train you will take.’

They walked the length of the lane almost in silence, glancing at each other once or twice.  At the village station, Wilfrid discovered that a good train left Dunfield shortly after nine o’clock.  From Pendal to Dunfield there would be a train in a quarter of an hour.

They stood together under the station shed.  No other passenger was waiting, and the official had not yet arrived to open the booking-office.

‘When shall I hear from you?’ Emily asked, putting off from instant to instant the good-bye, which grew ever harder to say.

‘In less than a week.  I shall leave London early tomorrow morning.’

‘But it will give you no time for rest.’

’I am not able to rest.  Go as often as you can to the castle, that I may think of you as sitting there.’

‘I will go very often.’

She could not trust herself to utter more than a few words.  As she spoke, the station-master appeared.  They moved away to the head of the stairs by which Emily had to leave.

‘I shall see your train to-night as it passes Pendal,’ she said.

Then there was the clasp of hands, and—­good-bye.  To Emily the way was dark before her as she hurried onward....

Mrs. Hood had subsided into the calm of hitter resignation.  Emily found her in the kitchen, engaged in polishing certain metal articles, an occupation to which she always had recourse when the legitimate work of the day was pretty well over.  Years ago, Mrs. Hood had not lacked interest in certain kinds of reading, but the miseries of her life had killed all that; the need of mechanical exertion was constantly upon her; an automatic conscience refused to allow her repose.  When she heard Emily entering by the front door, a sickly smile fixed itself upon her lips, and with this she silently greeted the girl.

‘It is too bad of me, mother,’ Emily said, trying to assume playfulness, which contrasted strangely with an almost haggard weariness on her face.  ’You will give me up as hopeless; I will promise, like the children, that it shall never happen again.’