e, and he rose more slowly.

"Shall I take your flowers for you?" he asked. "They seem rather
inclined to tumble about; don't you think they would be safer in my
pocket? As you say you are going to dry them, it won't matter crushing
them."

She gave them to him, and he put the sweet-smelling bunch into his
pocket, then they started for the edge of the wood.

"It is much colder," Julia said; "and the sun is all gone; I suppose
the clouds have been coming gradually, but I did not notice before. If
it is going to rain, we shall get decidedly wet before we get back."

"I am afraid so," he agreed; "you have no coat."

She told him that did not matter, she did not mind getting wet, and
she spoke with a cheerful buoyancy that carried conviction.

When they reached the outskirts of the wood, however, they saw there
was not much chance of rain, but a much worse evil threatened. All the
distance on the seaward side was blotted out, a fine white mist shut
out the curving land in that direction. It was blowing up towards
them, rolling down the little hills in billowy puffs, and lying
filmy, yet dense, in the hollows, moved by a wind unfelt here.

"A sea fog," Julia said; "I wonder how far it is coming."

Rawson-Clew wondered too; he thought, as she did, that there was every
chance of its coming far and fast, but it did not seem necessary to
either of them to say anything so unpleasantly and obviously probable.

They set out homewards as fast as they could; it was a long way to the
place where they had climbed up, unfortunately all across open
country, entirely without roads or definite paths, and the drifting
sea fog was coming up fast, bound, it would seem, the same way. Soon
it was upon them; they felt its advance in the chill that, like cold
fingers, laid hold on everything; it came quite silently up from
behind, without noticeable wind, eerily creeping up and enfolding
everything, putting a white winding-sheet not about the earth only,
but the very air also. The cotton blouse that Julia wore became limp
and wet as if it had been dipped in water; she could see the fog
condensing in beads on her companion's coat almost like hoar frost; it
lay on every low-growing rose bush and bramble that they stepped upon,
a curious transformer of all near objects, a complete obliterator of
all more distant ones.

They pushed on as quickly as might be, climbing little hills,
descending into hollows; stumbling among rabbit holes, thre