She approached the real business of her call:
"I was thinking we might have gone over to see Ingpen this afternoon."
"Well, let's."
Ingpen, convalescent, had insisted, two days earlier, on being removed to his own house, near the village of Stockbrook, a few miles south of Axe. The departure was a surprising example of the mere power of volition on the part of a patient. The routine of hospital life had exasperated the recovering soul of this priest of freedom to such a point that doctor, matron, and friends had had to yield to a mere instinct.
"There's no decent train to go, and none at all to come back until nearly nine o'clock. And we can't cycle in this weather--at least I can't, especially in the dark."
"Well, what about Sunday?"
"The Sunday trains are worse."
"What a ghastly line!" said Edwin. "And they have the cheek to pay five per cent! I remember Ingpen telling me there was one fairish train into Knype in the morning, and one out in the afternoon. And there wouldn't be that if the Locomotive Superintendent didn't happen to live at Axe."
"It's a pity you haven't got a dog-cart, isn't it?" said Hilda, lightly smiling. "Because then we could use the works horse now and then, and it wouldn't really cost anything extra, would it?"
Her heart was beating perceptibly.