"Eight minutes. By Cripps! you'll 'ave to run for it."
She waved her white hand, and was gone, swiftly as a bird or a deer.
"They've signalled!" W. Keyse announced after a breathless interval, during which the slender flying figure grew smaller upon the straining sight. It vanished, and a thin, nearing screech announced the up-Express. His wife jumped up and clutched him.
"William! Suppose she's lost it!"
"Garn! No fear!" scoffed W. Keyse.
As he scoffed he was full of fear. They heard the clanking stoppage, the shrill whistle of departure. They looked breathlessly towards the green wood that fringed the cliff-base under the Castle head. The iron way ran through the belt of trees. The Express rushed through, broke roaring upon their unimpeded vision, devoured the gleaming line of metals that lay between wood and tunnel, and left them with the taste of cindery steam in their open mouths, and the memory of a white handkerchief waved at a carriage-window by a slender hand.
"It's a'right, old gal!" said W. Keyse, beaming. "Come on up to the 'ouse. I could do wiv a bit o' peck, an' I lay so could you. Lumme!" His triumphant face fell by the fraction of an inch. "What'll she do when she lands in 'ome, wivout a woman to git a cup o' tea for 'er? Or curl 'er 'air, or undo 'er st'yl'yoes an' things?"
"She'll do wot other young wimmen does under sim'lar circumstances," said Mrs. Keyse enigmatically. She added: "If she 'as luck, she'll 'ave a man for' er maid, an' if she 'as sense, she'll reckon the swop a good one!"