“But they will pass!” cried Betty. “I can wait!”
She was in a state of exaltation when no trial of patience seemed too great to face, and difficulties presented themselves only as glorious opportunities; but the man, who had experienced the heat and burden of the day, sighed, and was silent.
By this time they had made their way past the great houses standing back from the road, and were close on the Lancaster Gate Station of the Central London Railway. A faint light streamed into the gloom from the glass fanlight, and for the first time Betty began to feel that she trod on familiar ground.
“Ah, here we are; if we go round this corner I shall be home in five minutes. Perhaps we shall arrive before the others, after all. You have brought me so quickly that there is no time for them to have been anxious, unless Miles went in alone.”
The stranger did not answer. They turned round the corner of Stanhope Terrace and walked along for twenty or thirty yards, then suddenly he stood still, and dropped her arm.
“I may never meet you again,” he said slowly; “in all probability we never shall meet, but before we part, let me see your face, Betty!”
There was a sound of a match being struck against the side of a box, then a tiny flame flickered up in the darkness. Betty gazed upwards into a face still young, but haggard and drawn with suffering, a long thin face with deep-set eyes and a well-cut chin.
“Now, now, now,” she was saying breathlessly to herself. “I must notice! I must remember! I shall have to remember for so many years—”
The flame quivered and faded away.
“Thank you,” said the stranger quietly. “I shall remember!” Evidently his thoughts and hers had followed the same course.