The wide stretches of gra.s.s and plough and the long length of road seemed almost as unsuggestive of human influence as the sands themselves. Swifter and swifter faded the pa.s.sionate confidence which had sent her out, leaving the risks of the matter uppermost in her mind.

She remembered that it was possible to be patient all one's life, and yet to wreck the fruits of it in an unguarded hour. This sudden mental and physical rashness might be symbolical of a greater rashness of the soul. Perhaps after to-night all her footholds and anchorages might go, leaving the world that she had managed so bravely only a nightmare blurred by tears.

The dusk thickened about her as the night tried to impress itself on the earth as a separate ent.i.ty from the mist. The most that it could do, however, was to produce the effect of a hovering shadow from some huge arrested wing. The real warning of night was in the deepened sense of loneliness and dread of personal diminution in a growing s.p.a.ce, in the further recession of things unseen as well as seen. It lay, too, in the stirring consciousness of the impending advent of the tide. She began to look anxiously towards her father's window for the lamp, and though she was comforted when she saw no sign, it stamped the illusion of desolation on her mind. Then she heard the cattle stir in the shippon as she walked along the wall, and was cheered and companioned by them for a little while. She would have gone down to them, or to the dog, who was always a firm friend, but she was afraid of losing her consciousness of time. She could not tear herself, either, from her breathless waiting for the silence to fill with life. She was cold whether she stood or walked, and more and more oppressed by a sense of folly and grave doubt. She even laughed at the middle-aged woman who had thrilled like a girl, but she laughed between her tears. Once or twice she ran down the bank and on to the sand, but always something drew her back, and at last, when she had listened so long that she had ceased to hear, there came the crunching sound of the Thornthwaite wheels. It was there suddenly where there had been no sign, as if it had only begun at the moment it reached her ear. At once her courage sprang up again, and her spirits rose. The whole affair was sweet and brave once more. It was as if she had heard her lover himself coming surely towards her over the lonely marsh....

III

Simon uttered an exclamation when he saw the figure on the wall. His heart leaped first with a supernatural fear, and then with a sudden foreboding of some normal ill. His nerves were still unstrung from his experience with the car, and ready enough to shape familiar objects into ghosts. Even when he had recognised May and spoken her name, he could not rid himself of his feeling of alarm.

So he was not pleased to see her when she came running down, and Sarah, who had spent so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased either. In the last few miles she had seemed to travel out of human touch, and there was a jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one thing left to her to love. Her brow contracted both with the effort of thought and the effort of sight, but indeed she knew well enough why May was there.

Her intuition had worked uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now.

She knew what impulse had brought May out to await their coming home.

Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden appearance at his journey's end. He sat still in the trap as she came swiftly through the yard, and then leaned out to address her with an anxious frown.

"Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin' here so late? Nowt wrong, is there? Father badly again? Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"

She rea.s.sured him with a shake of the head and a smile, and, as in the case of Mr. Dent, he felt a sudden resentment towards smiles. In all his life Simon had never encountered so many smiling faces as had looked at him that day.

"All's right, thank you.... Father's much about the same. I wanted a word with Mrs. Thornthet, that was all.

"You've been a terble while on the road, though!" she added gaily, before he could speak. "I'd about made up my mind as I'd have to be getting back."

"We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it was," Simon said, remembering suddenly and with gloom the precise circ.u.mstances under which they had been kept. "But if you n.o.bbut wanted a word wi' the missis, you could surely ha' waited while morn. It's a daft-like trick to be lakin' on t'sands when it's getting dark."

His words made her turn again to throw a glance at the inn, but still there was no summoning gleam from the room upstairs. "Ay, but tide isn't till six," she answered him coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't be long. Father'll show a light for me when it's time I was setting off."

Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already clambered out, and Simon remembered that he had the horse to stable and the cows to milk and feed. "Danged foolishness, that's what it is!" he growled, as he scrambled down, giving May a very unaccustomed scowl. "If I did as I ought, I'd be skifting you pretty sharp. Say what you've gitten to say, and then clear out!"

Sarah had been moving away from them towards the house, but, as May followed her, she swung about. There was no invitation, however, in her rigid face.

"You've nowt to say as I know on," she said in a curt tone, "and I'm rarely tired. Anyway, there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of a chat."

"I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed, advancing towards her, full of kindly warmth. She had been prepared for some such reception as this, and was not depressed. "What, I've been across that often, it's the same to me as the road! I've been over when it was snowing,--ay, and by moonlight, too. As for Geordie," she added, with a tender laugh, "he's crossed in the pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where he was at!

"I was bound to ask you again before I slept," she urged, casting a glance at Simon, busy with the horse. "Can't I come in a minute?--I won't be long. It's late to be telling my business in the yard."

"You've no business wi' me," Sarah said stolidly, "so you can stop off yon weam voice. You're not coming into Sandholes to-night, May Fleming, so that's flat!"

May laughed again, but there was less confidence in the laugh. She waited to speak again until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping and barking under the horse's nose.

"It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to bother you so late, but I just couldn't bring myself to wait. It was you as brought it all back, Mrs.

Thornthet, come to that, with yon talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming home!"

"There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said coldly, "and never was."

With one magnificent sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the afternoon.

"You ought to ha' more sense than to go fancying things like that!"

"But you'd a letter, you said, begging his fare?" May was slightly bewildered, but went pressing on. "You said he was keen to come, if he had the bra.s.s."

"Ay, and there wasn't no bra.s.s; so yon's finished and by wi'," Sarah said.

"Ay, but there is," May pleaded. "Plenty o' bra.s.s!" She faltered a little before the other's lack of response. "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet, don't you look like that! What does it matter where it comes from if it makes folks glad?"

"I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my la.s.s, as I said before."

"I can spare the bra.s.s right enough,--if it's only that."

"Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it," Sarah said.

"Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my happiness!" May begged. "I'd be real proud to think as I'd brought him back, even if he never looked aside at me again."

"You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll be bound!" There was a touch of weary impatience in Sarah's voice. "And what-like happiness would it be for you in the end? Nay, May, my girl, we've thrashed the matter out, and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."

May sighed, and stood looking at her with troubled eyes, but she was unable to let the whole of her hope go.

"I'm right sorry to have put you about," she said sadly. "It's a real shame! Can't you promise to think it over a bit? I'll come over to-morrow for another talk."

"I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's flat!" Sarah snapped.

"I'll promise to turn key in the door when I see you coming, and that's all!"

The tears came into May's eyes.

"You've no call to go telling me off like that," she said, with a little break in her voice. "I haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure."

"You've shoved your nose into other folks' business," Sarah said roughly,--"that's what you've done! I'll thank you to leave us to do for our lad as'll suit us best!"

"He was mine, too!" May flung at her suddenly, roused at last. "Long ago, maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"

Sarah gave a sneering laugh.

"There'll be more than one la.s.s, I reckon, setting up to think that!"

May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart.

"Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!" she exclaimed, in a voice quivering with pain. "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie again, but it don't make that much difference now. It's for your sake and poor Mr. Thornthet's that I want to see him back....

"You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went on bravely, controlling herself again. "You like me well enough now, whatever you felt once. Can't you take the money for the sake of bygone times?"

But already Sarah had turned away from her and was moving towards the door. She fitted the key in the lock with the ease of use, and gave the rickety door an opening push. And again May followed and stood, strong in the courage of those who plead for the thing that they have at heart.

"Don't go away feeling mad with me, Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged. "I'm sorry I spoke as I did. Think on how happy we were together, this morning, you and me. Think how it would be if he was to come marching into the yard...."

Sarah was now over the threshold, with her hand against the door, but May's hand was also against it, refusing to let it close. Her face was white as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading and sweet with frank lips and tearful eyes. Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house, a shadow that was yet more surely a block than the actual door. It seemed to May that she had all the pa.s.sionless resistance of some ancient, immovable stone. A lantern across showed the black squares of the shippon stalls, the white coats of the beasts and Simon moving from dark to light. May did not know that the old woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that that last sentence of hers had broken the stubborn will. She waited despairingly, seeking for more to say, and finding nothing, since the right word had been said. And because she despaired she broke the pause too soon, in an access of hopelessness flinging away her chance. Taking her hand from the door, she pointed to Simon at his job.

"I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried sharply, beginning to move away. "Happen he'll see to it for me instead of you. Happen he'll see the offer's kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!"