Walter, it need scarcely be said, was not at his Greek. He went up the road toward the village with long strides devouring the way, though there was no moon nor any visible inducement. The village was as quiet a spot as could be found in all England. The only lights it showed were in a few cottage windows, or glimmering from behind the great holly-bushes at the rectory; a little bit of a straggling street, with an elbow composed of a dozen little houses, low and irregular, which streamed away toward the dark and silent fields, with the church, the natural center, rising half seen, a dark little tower pointing upward to the clouds. There was scarcely any one about, or any movement save at the public-house, where what was quite an illumination in the absence of other lights—the red glow of the fire, and the reflection of a lamp through a red curtain—streamed out into the road, making one warm and animated spot in the gloom. Wat, however, did not go near that center of rustic entertainment. He stopped at a low wall which surrounded a cottage on the outskirts—a cottage which had once been white, and had still a little grayness and luminousness of aspect which detached it from the surrounding darkness. A few bristling dry branches of what was in summer a bit of hedge surrounded the low projection of the wall. Walter paused there, where there was nothing visible to pause for. The night was dark. A confused blank of space, where in daylight the great stretch of the valley lay, was before him, sending from afar a fresh breath of wind into his face, while behind him, in the nearer distance, shone the few cottage lights, culminating in the red glow from the Penton Arms. What did he want at this corner with his back against the wall? Nothing, so far as any one could see. He made no signal, gave forth no sound, save that occasionally his feet made a stir on the beaten path as he changed his position. They got tired, but Walter himself was not tired. Presently came the faint sound of a door opening, and a flitting of other feet—light, short steps that scarcely seemed to touch the ground—and then the gate of the little garden clicked, and, heard, not visible, something came out into the road.
“Oh, are you here again, Mr. Walter? Why have you come again? You know I don’t want you here.”
“Why shouldn’t you want me? I want to come; it’s my pleasure.”
The voice of the young man had a deeper tone, a manlier bass than its usual youthful lightness coming through the dark, and the great space and freedom of the night.
“It’s a strange pleasure,” said the other voice. “I should not think it any pleasure were I in your place. If even there was a moon! for people that are fond of the beauties of nature that is always something. But now it is so dark”—there seemed a sort of shiver in the voice. “The dark is a thing I can’t abide, as they say here.”
“For my part, I like it best. Come this way, where the view is, and you would think you could see it—that is, you can feel it, which is almost more. Don’t you know what I mean? The wind blows from far away; it comes from miles of space, right out of the sky. You could feel even that the landscape was below you from the feel of the air.”
“That is all very pretty,” she said, and this time there was the indication of a yawn in her tone, “but if it is only for the sake of the landscape, one can see that when it’s day, and feeling it is a superfluity in the dark. If that was all you came for—”
“I did not come for that at all, as you know. I came for—it would be just the same to me if there was no landscape at all, if it was a street corner—”
“Under a lamp-post! Oh, that is my ideal!” with a little clap of her hands. “What I would give to see a lamp again, a bright, clear, big light, like Oxford Street or the Circus! You think that is very vulgar, I know.”
“Nothing is vulgar if you like it. I should like lamp-posts too if they had associations. I saw plenty of them to-day, and I wished I could have had you there to take you for a walk past the shop windows, since you are so fond of them.”