“What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly.
“I—I can’t walk home alone. I’m afeard!” He tossed his hammer aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg. As he swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously.
“Clumsy! can’t you see the doorway?” She passed out, and he followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the high-road, she slipped her arm into his. “I feel safe, that way. Let it stay, co!” After a few paces, she added, “You’re different from the others—that’s why I like you.”
“How?”
“I dunno; but you be diff’rent. You don’t think about girls, for one thing.”
Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the young moon—the hunter’s moon—now sinking over the slope of the hill. Thick dust—too thick for the heavy dew to lay—covered the cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused by the gate.
“Best go in separate,” she said; paused again and whispered, “You may if you like.”
“May do what?”
“What—what young Squire Vyell wanted.”
They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so they parted in an amorous little laugh. The moonlight was on her face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her.