"Let us walk faster," she said. "It is away past midnight. I do believe it's nearly day. Can you see your watch?"
"Yes, but I can't see the time."
"Nobody can see time, Mr. Teacher of Children."
"But I could not tell the time even if I were to hold the lantern to the watch."
"Oh, of course you could. Why do you talk that way?"
"I am moved to talk that way because I know that the watch, being in sympathy with me, refuses to record time when I am with you—it frightens off the minutes in an ecstasy."
"Nonsense, Mr. Hawes. I do believe daylight is coming. What a night we have passed, and here I am unable to realize it, and mother is heart-broken over our disgrace. But I suppose it will fall upon me and crush me when we have gone away. My brother sentenced to the penitentiary! To myself I have repeated these words over and over and yet they don't strike me."
"Perhaps it is because your mind is on some one else," I replied, with a return of my feeling of bitterness.
With a pressure gentle and yet forgetful her hand had been resting on my arm, but in an instant the pressure was gone like a bird fluttering from a bough, and out in the road she was walking alone.
"I earnestly beg your pardon. I scarcely knew what I was saying. Won't you please take my arm?"