"Oh, the inn!" She shuddered suddenly. "No, I couldn't go to the inn."
"Why—what frightened you?"
He sat down by her, speaking very gently, as one does to a child.
She was silent. His heart beat—his ear hungered for the next word.
She lifted her tired lids.
"My cousin was there—at the junction. I did not want him. I did not wish to be with him; he had no right whatever to follow me. So I sent him to the inn to ask—and I——"
"You——?"
"I hid myself in the quarry while he was gone. When he came back, he went on over the sands, calling for me—perhaps he thought I was lost in one of the bad places."
She gave a little whimsical sigh, as though it pleased her to think of the lad's possible frights and wanderings.
Helbeck bent towards her.