"No; she is out of town. She doesn't get back till to-morrow."
"You are going to have tea all alone?"
Allida gazed at him. How should she evade him if he offered to come back?
"I haven't had my walk yet. I came out for a little walk," she repeated.
By the blurred light of the street lamp he still looked at her, still held her trembling hand. His face showed his perplexed indecision. Suddenly he drew the hand within his arm.
"Let us have the little walk, then," he said, "only you must let me come with you. You are in some great trouble. Don't bother to deny it. Don't say anything. Your face showed me that something dreadful was happening to you. Don't speak—I saw it as I was passing on the other side of the street. The lamp was just lighted, else I shouldn't have recognised you. Now walk quietly on like this. Don't even think. I'm not a meddling idiot; I know I'm not. You are desperate about something, and anything, any one, even a complete stranger, and I'm not that, who steps in between desperation and an act is justified—perhaps a Godsend."
He was walking beside her, half leading her, talking quickly, as if to give her time to recover, and glancing at her stricken, helpless face.
As they walked they heard behind them the rattling fall of letters into a postman's bag; the pillar-box had been emptied.
The youth of the face, its essential childishness, the web of soft hair that hung disarranged over her cheek, made her look like a very little girl, and was in strange contrast with the look of terror.
They walked on and on, down streets, across wide, phantasmal squares.