nk you, but I can carry that easily."

"The Bennys always turn up sooner or later," he went on musingly.
"If they miss one train, they catch the next. Really, miss, there's no
occasion to walk. But if you must, and I may make so bold, why not step
over to my house and have a cup of tea before starting? The kettle's on
the boil, and my wife would make you welcome. We've a refreshment-room
here in the station," he added apologetically, "but it don't open till the
nine-twenty-seven."

Hester thanked him again, but would not accept the invitation. He fetched
the barrow for her trunk, and walked some little distance with her,
wheeling it. Where their ways parted he gave her the minutest directions,
and stood in the middle of the roadway to watch her safely past her first
turning.

The aspect of the land was strange to her yet, but the stationmaster's
kindness had made it less unhomely. The road ran under the base of a hill
to her left, between it and the marsh. It rose a little before reaching
the line of slate-roofed cottages; and as she mounted this rise the wind
met her more strongly, and with more of that tonic sharpness she had
shrunk from a while ago. It was shrewd, yet she felt that it was also
wholesome. Above the cottage roofs she now perceived many masts of
vessels clustered near the base of the tall chimney. She bent her head
against the breeze. When she raised it again after a short stiff climb,
she looked--and for the first time in her life--upon the open sea.

It stretched--another straight line--beyond the cottage roofs, in colour a
pale, unvaried grey-blue; and her first sensation was wonder at its bare
simplicity. She rested her bag upon the low hedge, and stood beside it at
gaze, her body bent forward to meet the wind.

For five minutes and more she stood there, so completely absorbed that the
sound of footsteps on the road drew near and passed her unheard.
A few paces beyond they came to a halt.

"Begging your pardon, miss, but that bag is heavy for you," said a voice.

She turned with a start, and, as she did so, was aware of a scent about
her, not strong, but deliciously clean and fragrant. It came from a tuft
of wild thyme on which her palm had been pressing while she leaned.

"Thank you, it is not heavy," she answered, in some confusion.
"I--I just rested it here while I looked out to sea."

She knew him at once for the blue-jerseyed young man she had seen in talk
with the porter