Those minutes had grown into a quarter of an hour, and then Margaret had come back looking decidedly guilty, but rather inclined to a tearful mirth.
"You needn't speak," said Tita, with a pretence at contempt. "You didn't say 'No' on Sunday, and you have said 'Yes' to-day. It is quite simple."
"Well, it is all your fault," Margaret had returned, sinking into a chair, and beginning to laugh rather shamefacedly. "If you had stayed with me it never would have happened. But you have shown me how delightful companionship is, and having shown it, you basely desert me. And now—I feel so lonely that——"
"That?"
"I have broken through all my vows, and said——"
"Yes?"
"Yes!"
"You must both come down and stay with me as soon as ever you can," said Tita, giving her a tender hug.
* * * * * *
The long sweet summer evening is growing into night as the train draws up at the old station that Tita knows so well. She looks out of the window, her heart in her eyes, taking in all the old signs—the guard fussy as ever—Evans the porter (she nods to him through eyes filled with tears)—the glimpse of the church spire over the top of the station-house—the little damp patch in the roof of the booking-office.