"If you haven't got nerve, you're no good," summed up the young man; "and if you have got nerve, then use it and break out of the beaten track and welcome your luck and court a few adventures for your soul's sake."
"All very well for you men," said Mrs. Northover. "You can have adventures and no great harm done; but us women, if we try for adventures, we come to a bad end."
"Nobody's more adventurous than you," answered Raymond. "Look at your gardens and your teas for a bob ahead. Wasn't that an adventure—to give a better tea than anybody in Bridport?"
"I believe women have quite as many adventures as men," declared Sarah
Northover, who was waiting for her aunt, "only we're quieter about 'em."
"We've got to be," answered Mrs. Northover. "Now come on to your mother's, Sarah. There's Mr. Roberts waiting for us outside."
In the silent and empty mill Raymond dawdled for a few minutes with Sabina, talked love and won a caress. Then she put on her sunbonnet and he walked with her to the door of her home, left her at 'The Magnolias' and went his way with Estelle's fruit basket.
A great expedition had been planned by the lovers for a forthcoming public holiday. They were going to rise in the dawn, before the rest of the world was awake, and tramp out through West Haven to Golden Cap—the supreme eminence of the south coast, that towers with bright, sponge-coloured precipices above the sea, nigh Lyme.
CHAPTER XI
THE OLD STORE-HOUSE
Through a misty morning, made silver bright by the risen sun, Sabina and Raymond started for their August holiday. They left Bridetown, passed through a white fog on the water-meadows and presently climbed to the cliffs and pursued their way westward. Now the sun was over the sea and the Channel gleamed and flashed under a wakening, westerly breeze.