On through the fair, English counties, and the heat of the sun grew less. The birds came from their shelter in the leafy trees and began to sing; the flowers yielded their loveliest perfumes, and the sweet summer wind that blew in at the carriage windows was like the breath of Paradise.
Still she had neither spoken nor moved. Then the train stopped, and the sudden cessation from all sound made her start up suddenly, as though roused from painful dreams.
"Have we—have we passed Crewe?" she asked.
And then her fellow-passengers looked wonderingly at her, for the voice was like no other sound—no human sound; it was a faint gasp, as of one who had escaped a deadly peril, and was still faint with the remembrance of it.
"No," replied a gentleman; "we have not reached Crewe yet. They are stopping for water, I should imagine. This is supposed to be one of the most out-of-the-way villages in England. It is called Redcliffe."
She gave one look through the open windows. There, behind the woods, a little village lay stretched and half hidden by the thick green foliage.
"I want to get out here," she said, in the same faint voice.
Her fellow-travelers looked at each other, and their glances said plainly, "There is something strange about her; let her go." A gentleman called the guard, and the woman, whose face was so carefully veiled, put something in his hand that shone like gold.
"Let me get out here," she said, and without a word he unlocked the door, and she left the carriage. Those who remained behind breathed more freely after she had gone. That strange, mute presence had had a depressing effect on them all.
She looked neither to the right nor to the left, but made her way quickly to the green fields, where the golden silence of summer reigned. She walked there with hasty steps, looking behind her to see if she were pursued.