"Ah, but that doesn't matter when you can see in the dark, as we moor folk can." He was curiously insistent on that moor bond between them. "Will you let me smoke just one pipe, and then I must be off; mother is down with a cold, and I promised not to be away for long."
He lit his pipe, and Kate Strangeways went out in a little while, to return with tea and buttered toast; they fell into some out-of-the-way topics over the tea, and continued them until another pipe, and yet another, had been smoked. Griff had forgotten all about the time, and his companion, while she remembered it, remembered also that Sunday was a day which her husband invariably spent at the Marshcotes inn, and that he would not be back much before midnight at the earliest; she had felt lonely before Griff came, and she wanted him to stay as long as forgetfulness of the hour would let him.
But he rose at last and looked at his watch.
"I really must be off; do you know what time it is, Mrs. Strangeways? The mother will think I have strayed into a bog, or something, if I keep her waiting much longer. Good night. No, don't come to the door; it is too cold for you."
"Too cold for you." There was a tenderness in the thought that soothed the woman; there was an off-hand friendliness in the tone that hurt her in some unexplained way.
He opened the heavy oak door, with its armour of nails and bolts and its out-of-date lock. A solid wall of fog came up close to the steps in front; snow showed white on the threshold, and drifting fog and snow combined took traveller's leave of the ingress afforded by the open door.
"You can't cross the moor until the fog lifts," said Kate, at his elbow.
"But I must. Mother will be sick with fear when she sees how bad the night is."
Instinctively she laid a hand on his arm.