'Oh,' cried Margaret, 'how clever you are to have thought of it, Giles! But,' and the bright look went out of her face, 'you don't think she'd make me go back to the witch, do you? Are you sure she wouldn't?'
'I really don't think she would,' I said. 'I know she has often been sorry for you, for she knew you weren't at all happy. And we'd tell her more about it. She is awfully kind.'
I meant what I said. Perhaps I saw it rather too favourably; the idea of finding a friend in London was such a comfort just then, that I felt as if everything else might be left for the time. I never thought about catching trains at the Junction or about its getting late and dark for Margaret to be travelling alone from there to Hill Horton, or anything, except just the hope—the tremendous hope—that we might find our kind old lady.
HE LOOKED AT THE TICKETS . . . 'HOW'S THIS?' HE SAID.—p. 145.
The train slackened, and very soon we pulled up. It wasn't the station yet, however, but the place where they stop to take tickets, just outside. I know it so well now, for we pass it ever so often on our way from and to school several times a year. But whenever we pass it, or stop at it, I think of that miserable day and all my fears.
The man put his head in at the window. He was a stranger.
'Tickets, please,' he said.
I was ready for him—tickets, Peterkin's half-sovereign, and all. I held out the tickets.
'There's been a mistake,' I began. 'I shall have to pay up,' and when he heard that, he opened the door and came in.