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“What’s thy name?” he asked curiously.

“Lydia,” she said.

“Lydia!” he repeated, wonderingly. He felt rather shy.

“Mine’s Geoffrey Wookey,” he said.

She merely smiled at him.

They were silent for a considerable time. By morning light, things look small. The huge trees of the evening were dwindling to hoary, small, uncertain things, trespassing in the sick pallor of the atmosphere.

There was a dense mist, so that the light could scarcely breathe. Everything seemed to quiver with cold and sickliness.

“Have you often slept out?” he asked her.

“Not so very,” she answered.

“You won’t go after him?” he asked.

“I s’ll have to,” she replied, but she nestled in to Geoffrey. He felt a sudden panic.

“You musn’t,” he exclaimed, and she saw he was afraid for himself. She let it be, was silent.

“We couldn’t get married?” he asked, thoughtfully.

“No.”

He brooded deeply over this. At length:

“Would you go to Canada with me?”

“We’ll see what you think in two months’ time,” she replied quietly, without bitterness.

“I s’ll think the same,” he protested, hurt.

She did not answer, only watched him steadily. She was there for him to do as he liked with; but she would not injure his fortunes; no, not to save his soul.

“Haven’t you got no relations?” he asked.

“A married sister at Crick.”

“On a farm?”

“No–married a farm labourer–but she’s very comfortable. I’ll go there, if you want me to, just till I can get another place in service.”

He considered this.

“Could you get on a farm?” he asked wistfully.

“Greenhalgh’s was a farm.”

He saw the future brighten: she would be a help to him. She agreed to go to her sister, and to get a place of service–until Spring, he said, when they would sail for Canada. He waited for her assent.

“You will come with me, then?” he asked.

“When the time comes,” she said.

Her want of faith made him bow his head: she had reason for it.

“Shall you walk to Crick, or go from Langley Mill to Ambergate? But it’s only ten mile to walk. So we can go together up Hunt’s Hill–you’d have to go past our lane-end, then I could easy nip down an’ fetch you some money,” he said, humbly.

“I’ve got half a sovereign by me–it’s more than I s’ll want.”

“Let’s see it,” he said.

After a while, fumbling under the blanket, she brought out the piece of money. He felt she was independent of him. Brooding rather bitterly, he told himself she’d forsake him. His anger gave him courage to ask:

“Shall you go in service in your maiden name?”

“No.”

He was bitterly wrathful with her–full of resentment.

“I bet I s’ll niver see you again,” he said, with a short, hard laugh. She put her arms round him, pressed him to her bosom, while the tears rose to her eyes. He was reassured, but not satisfied.

“Shall you write to me to-night?”

“Yes, I will.”

“And can I write to you–who shall I write to?”

“Mrs Bredon.”

“‘Bredon’!” he repeated bitterly.

He was exceedingly uneasy.

The dawn had grown quite wan. He saw the hedges drooping wet down the grey mist. Then he told her about Maurice.

“Oh, you shouldn’t!” she said.”You should ha’ put the ladder up for them, you should.”

“Well–I don’t care.”

“Go and do it now–and I’ll go.”

“No, don’t you. Stop an’ see our Maurice, go on, stop an’ see him–then I s’ll be able to tell him.”

She consented in silence. He had her promise she would not go before he returned. She adjusted her dress, found her way to the trough, where she performed her toilet.

Geoffrey wandered round to the upper field. The stacks looked wet in the mist, the hedge was drenched. Mist rose like steam from the grass, and the near hills were veiled almost to a shadow. In the valley, some peaks of black poplar showed fairly definite, jutting up. He shivered with chill.

There was no sound from the stacks, and he could see nothing. After all, he wondered, were they up there. But he reared the ladder to the place whence it had been swept, then went down the hedge to gather dry sticks. He was breaking off thin dead twigs under a holly tree when he heard, on the perfectly still air: “Well I’m dashed!”

He listened intently. Maurice was awake.

“Sithee here!” the lad’s voice exclaimed. Then, after a while, the foreign sound of the girl: