Harding unlatched the outer door, and she flew out into the rushing wind. He was at her side in a moment. "Take my arm," he said.
"I won't!" cried the girl, angrily. "Why don't you leave me when I ask you?"
"Because you can't go all through Mitchelhurst alone this stormy night—and so late," said Reynold, raising his voice to dominate an especially furious gust.
Barbara caught at Mrs. Simmonds's railings to steady herself. "Thank you!" she shouted, "it's very kind of you to remind me that I ought not to be here at this time of night!" She felt as if her words were torn out of her mouth and whirled away. She ended with something that sounded like a sob, but she herself hardly knew what it was, or what became of it.
"Nonsense!" said Reynold, as if he were hailing her from an almost hopeless distance. "You must let me see you safely to the gate." The gust subsided a little. "You must indeed," he added in a more natural tone.
"Will you leave me?" she persisted. "It's all I ask you!"
"Very well," he answered, angrily. "But I suppose Mitchelhurst Street is as free to me as to you, and I don't see that you can want more than half of it. Take whichever side you please, and I'll go the other."
"Good night," she said, ignoring this declaration. He waited only to ascertain her intention, and then strode across the way to the further path.
They walked through the village in this fashion, two dusky shapes, grotesquely blown and hustled by the strong wind. A capricious blast, catching Barbara's dress, would send her scudding helplessly for a few yards before she could regain her self-control. The tall figure on the other side of the road, clutching at his hat, would quicken his long steps to keep up with her involuntary increase of speed. When she contrived to pull herself up he slackened his pace, timing his movements with shadow-like accuracy and persistence.
The clouds were flying in such quick succession that for some time there was no decided break through which the moon might show her face. The heavens were a vast moving canopy, glimmering with diffused light, that grew to spectral whiteness now and again, when the veil was thin over the hidden orb. Harding blessed the obscurity which might save Miss Strange from the wondering comments of Mitchelhurst. They only met three or four men, fighting their homeward way against the wind, and, country fashion, keeping the centre of the road. One of these caught sight of Reynold, and, staring at him, shouted a jovial "Good night," to which the young man, glad to monopolise his attention, made a courteous reply, while the slim little figure, on the other side of the way, stole along in the shadow of the houses unobserved. Presently they passed beyond the village street and turned into the road which led up to the Place, where the high banks sheltered them a little, and they did not meet the wind so directly. Barbara kept to the hedgerow on the left, Reynold skirted that on the right, and though the narrower way enforced a rather closer companionship, they walked with an air of indifference as serene as the stormy night permitted.