ghtly to hear better; and the deep night buried everything of the
whispering woman and the attentive man, except the familiar contiguity
of their faces, with its air of secrecy and caress.

He squared his shoulders; the broad-brimmed shadow of a hat sat
cavalierly on his head. "Awkward this, eh?" he appealed to her.
"To-morrow? Well, well! Never heard tell of anything like this. It's all
to-morrow, then, without any sort of to-day, as far as I can see."

She remained still and mute.

"And you have been encouraging this funny notion," he said.

"I never contradicted him."

"Why didn't you?"

"What for should I?" she defended herself. "It would only have made him
miserable. He would have gone out of his mind."

"His mind!" he muttered, and heard a short nervous laugh from her.

"Where was the harm? Was I to quarrel with the poor old man? It was
easier to half believe it myself."

"Aye, aye," he meditated, intelligently. "I suppose the old chap got
around you somehow with his soft talk. You are good-hearted."

Her hands moved up in the dark nervously. "And it might have been true.
It was true. It has come. Here it is. This is the to-morrow we have been
waiting for."

She drew a breath, and he said, good-humouredly: "Aye, with the door
shut. I wouldn't care if... And you think he could be brought round
to recognise me... Eh? What?... You could do it? In a week you
say? H'm, I daresay you could--but do you think I could hold out a
week in this dead-alive place? Not me! I want either hard work, or an
all-fired racket, or more space than there is in the whole of England. I
have been in this place, though, once before, and for more than a week.
The old man was advertising for me then, and a chum I had with me had
a notion of getting a couple quid out of him by writing a lot of silly
nonsense in a letter. That lark did not come off, though. We had to
clear out--and none too soon. But this time I've a chum waiting for me
in London, and besides..."

Bessie Carvil was breathing quickly.

"What if I tried a knock at the door?" he suggested.

"Try," she said.

Captain Hagberd's gate squeaked, and the shadow of the son moved on,
then stopped with another deep laugh in the throat, like the father's,
only soft and gentle, thrilling to the woman's heart, awakening to her
ears.

"He isn't frisky--is he? I would be afraid to lay hold of him. The chaps
are always telling me I don't know my own strength."

"He's the mos