right touch or intonation, and her heart
would recognise him and be melted. Yet he durst not open his mouth, and
drove in silence till they had passed the main park-gates and turned
into the cross-cut lane along the wall. Then it seemed to him as if it
must be now, or never.

"Can't you see you are killing me?" he cried. "Speak to me, look at me,
treat me like a human man."

She turned slowly and looked him in the face with eyes that seemed
kinder. He dropped the reins and caught her hand, and she made no
resistance, although her touch was unresponsive. But when, throwing one
arm round her waist, he sought to kiss her lips, not like a lover
indeed, not because he wanted to do so, but as a desperate man who puts
his fortunes to the touch, she drew away from him, with a knot in her
forehead, backed and shied about fiercely with her head, and pushed him
from her with her hand. Then there was no room left for doubt, and Dick
saw, as clear as sunlight, that she had a distaste or nourished a grudge
against him.

"Then you don't love me?" he said, drawing back from her, he also, as
though her touch had burnt him; and then, as she made no answer, he
repeated with another intonation, imperious and yet still pathetic, "You
don't love me, _do_ you, _do_ you?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Why do you ask me? Oh, how should I know?
It has all been lies together--lies, and lies, and lies!"

He cried her name sharply, like a man who has taken a physical hurt, and
that was the last word that either of them spoke until they reached
Thymebury Junction.

This was a station isolated in the midst of moorlands, yet lying on the
great up-line to London. The nearest town, Thymebury itself, was seven
miles distant along the branch they call the Vale of Thyme Railway. It
was now nearly half an hour past noon, the down train had just gone by,
and there would be no more traffic at the junction until half-past
three, when the local train comes in to meet the up express at a quarter
before four. The stationmaster had already gone off to his garden, which
was half a mile away in a hollow of the moor; a porter, who was just
leaving, took charge of the phaeton, and promised to return it before
night to Naseby House; only a deaf, snuffy, and stern old man remained
to play propriety for Dick and Esther.

Before the phaeton had driven off, the girl had entered the station and
seated herself upon a bench. The endless, empty moorlands stretched
be