She shuddered away from him as he held her, and looked at him with blank, tearless eyes.
"Do not touch me—take me home."
That was all she ever said to him. She never asked him or told him anything. She never noticed that it was strange that he should have been here upon the river-bank. He let her be, and took her silently in the cool night back by the iron ways to Brabant.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
She sat quite still and upright in the wagon with the dark lands rushing by her. She never spoke at all. She had a look that frightened him upon her face. When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him.
The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept.
So the night wore away.
She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a bewildered way, and never spoke.
Were the sixteen days a dream?
She did not know.