But it was a very tearful, scratched, miserable face that bobbed up the opening near Judy again.

She did not move, though her eyes were half open, and he knelt down and shook her shoulder gently.

“Here’s some things, Judy—­ain’t you goin’ to eat them?”

She shook her head very slightly.

“Have some corned beef, or some currants; there’s some peel, too, if you’d rather.”

She shook her head again.  “Do take them away,” she said, with a little moan.

A look of blank disappointment stole over his small, heated face.

“An’ I’ve half killed myself to get them!  Well, you are a mean girl!” he said.

“Oh, do go away,”:  Judy moaned, moving her head restlessly from side to side.  “Oh, how my feet ache! no—­my head, and my side—­oh!  I don’t know what it is!”

“I got hit here and here,” Bunty said, indicating the places, and wiping away tears of keen self-pity with his coat sleeve.  “I’m scratched all over with that beastly old cactus.”

“Do you suppose there are many miles more?” Judy said, in such a quick way that all the words seemed to run into each other.  “I’ve walked hundreds and hundreds, and haven’t got home yet.  I suppose it’s because the world’s round, and I’ll be walling in at the school gate again presently.”

“Don’t be an idjut!” Bunty said gruffly.

“You’ll be sure and certain, Marian, never to breathe a word of it; I’ve trusted you, and if you keep faith I can go home and come back and no one will know.  And lend me two shillings, can you?  I’ve not got much left.  Bunty, you selfish little pig, you might get me some milk!  I’ve been begging and begging of you for hours, and my head is going to Catherine wheels for want of it.”

“Have some corned beef, Judy, dear—­oh, Judy, don’t be so silly and horrid after I nearly got killed for you,” Bunty said, trying with trembling fingers to stuff a piece into her mouth.

The little girl rolled over and began muttering again.

“Seventy-seven miles,” she said, “and I walked eleven yesterday, that makes eleven hundred and seventy-seven—­and six the day before because my foot had a blister—­that’s eleven hundred and eighty-three.  And if I walk ten miles a day I shall get home in eleven hundred and eighty-three times ten, that’s a thousand and—­and—­oh! what is it? whatever is it?  Bunty, you horrid little pig, can’t you, tell me what it is?  My head aches too much to work, and a thousand and something days—­that’s a year—­two years—­two years—­three years before I get there.  Oh, Pip, Meg, three years! oh, Esther! ask him, ask him to let me come home!  Three years—­years—­years!”

The last word was almost shrieked and the child struggled to her feet and tried to walk.

Bunty caught her arms and held her.  “Let me go, can’t you?” she said hoarsely.  “I shall never get there at this rate.  Three years, and all those miles!”