Windebank, loaded with parcels, accompanied Mavis to the door of her lodging.  Here, she opened the door, and in three or four journeys to her room relieved Windebank of his burdens.  She was loth to let him go.  Seeing that her baby was sleeping peacefully, she said to Windebank, when she joined him outside: 

“I’ll walk a little way with you.”

“It’s very good of you.”

As they walked towards Victoria, neither of them seemed eager for speech.  They were both oppressed by the realisation of the inevitable roads to which life’s travellers are bound, despite the personal predilections of the wayfarers.

“Little Mavis! little Mavis! what is going to happen?” he presently asked.

“I’m going to be married and live happily ever after,” she answered.

“I’ve had shocking luck.  I mean with regard to you,” he continued.

Mavis making no reply to this remark, he went on: 

“But what I can’t understand is, why you ran away that night when I got you out of Mrs Hamilton’s.”

“I escaped in the fog.”

“But why?  Why?  Little Mavis! little Mavis! these things are much too sacred to play the fool with.”

“I ran away out of consideration for you.”

“Eh?”

“Why else should I?  I didn’t want you to burden your life with a nobody like me.”

“Are you serious?”

She laughed bitterly.

“Well, I’m hanged!” he cried.

“It’s no use worrying now.”

“One can’t altogether help it.  Why hadn’t you a better sense of your value?  I’d have married you; I’d have lived for you, and I swear I’d have made you happy.”

“I know you would,” she assented.

“And now I find you like this.”

“I’ll be going back now.”

“I’ll turn with you if I may.”

“You’ll be late.”

“I’ll chance that,” he laughed.  “Months before I met you at Mrs Hamilton’s, I heard about you from Devitt.”

“What did he say?”

“It was just before you were going down to see him, from some school you were at, about taking a governess’s billet.  He told me of this, and I sent you a message.”

“I never had it.”

“Not really?”

“A fact.  What was it?”

“I said that my people and myself were no end of keen on seeing you again and that we wanted you to come down and stay.”

“You told him that?”

“One day in the market-place at Melkbridge.  Afterwards, I often asked about you, if he knew your address and all that; but I never got anything out of him.”

“But he knew all the time where I was.  I don’t understand.”

“Little Mavis is very young.”

“That’s right:  insult me,” she laughed.

“Those sort of people with a marriageable daughter aren’t going to handicap their chances by having sweet Mavis about the house.”

“People aren’t really like that!”