It was after six o'clock.
'Wilfrid, I must go.

My absence will seem so strange what fables I shall have to invent on the way home.

Do you know of any train that you can leave by ?' '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.